Small Town Murder - #481 - Layers Of Evil - Grass Valley, California

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

This week, in Grass Valley, California, two teenage girls leave a sleepover, for a bit of partying with a local guy, but never return home, sparking a massive search, that ends tragically. These brutal murders are connected to a family friend, who was a little too old to hang out them. The evidence points to him, but some things don't add up. He comes up with a far fetched tale to explain it all away, but will anyone buy it?Along the way, we find out that Lettuce must rock, that 21 year old men shouldn't want to hang out with 16 year old girls, and that some people are very kind & forgiving!!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Grass Valley, California, two teenage girls head out for a night of hanging out but end up brutally murdered and disposed of. Theories of serial killers and cults pop up, but the truth is even crazier.

Welcome to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another wild, crazy edition of Small Town Murder. No different this week. Wild stuff.

A few things. Top of the show. First of all, if you're listening to this early, early release, there is still time to get to the shows in California, right near where this show actually took place. Hurry up. Sacramento, April 5th and San Francisco April 6th. If you listen to it regular when it comes out, it's already over. We had a great time. Thank you for

being a wonderful audience. Otherwise tickets available for the rest of the year including 4-20 April the 20th virtual live show anywhere in the world. Can't make it to a live show? Let's say you're in Australia. No problem. No problem.

We got you covered. Cuddle up with your nearest koala and put your, eat some wallaby paws or whatever you guys do down there. And anything you want, anywhere you are with internet, I think they have something, some horrible disease. I think that's koalas.

Yeah. That's what you said, right? Okay. Yeah. So there you go. I don't know. I thought I said wallaby. then I said wallaby paw.

So wherever you are in the world, just like a regular live show, but in your living room, we cannot wait. ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. And it's available for two weeks after that. So you can buy it and you can watch it as many times as you want. You can re-watch it. You can do anything you want with it. So check that out.

We're very excited for that. So there's that. And then patreon.com slash crime in sports you certainly want to get that that is all the bonus episodes and it's very very inexpensive anybody five dollars a month or above it's a mere cup of coffee right we're going to give you your cup will overflow with with bonus and couple hundred back episodes and then new ones every other week one crime and sports one small town murder and how much of that do they get jimmy every drop james all of it this week what you're gonna get for crime and sports we're gonna talk about this will be a fun one here the trials and tribulations

of hulk hogan he's yeah not a lot of no real crime but just i mean his kid killed a guy and then his plenty of trials and plenty of tribulations he's had trials and sex tapes and lawsuits it's a lot and sex tapes and lawsuits. It's a lot going on there. And then for small town murder back by popular demand, we haven't done it in a long time. And people have been asking for it. We're going to do weird small town festivals again. Terrific.

Talk about all of those. That'll be a lot of fun. So we cannot wait for that. That's patreon.com slash crime and sports. And you get a shout out at the end of the show. So there you go. Disclaimer time. It's a comedy show. Yeah. We're comed comedians we're definitely going to make jokes here and people are going to die but for sure they usually happen in separate places that's the thing we make fun of

you know a murderer we have to make fun of the murderer maybe a bumbling police force that lets a murderer go for a while we make fun of small towns we're all from small towns stuff like that but what we don't do what we go out of our way not to do is we do We make fun of small towns. We're all from small towns. Stuff like that. But what we don't do, what we go out of our way not to do, is we do not make fun of the victims or the victims' families. Why? Because we're assholes. Yes, but? But we're not scumbags. See how that goes?

So if that sounds good to you, you are going to hear a wild story with some good stuff in it. If you think true crime and comedy should never, ever, ever cross paths, we might not be for you, because that's kind of what we are here. Either way, I think you should check it out, and then no bitching later. Let's put it that way.

Stole your complaint. That's it. That said, I think it's time, everybody. I think it's time to clear the lungs. What do we say here? Arms to the sky. Let's all shout, Shut up and give me murder

let's do this everybody let's go on a trip shall we Jimmy yes we shall we will be going on this trip in about 12 hours so yeah head to this exact area we're going to Grass Valley California you know anywhere it is in eastern

California up by sacramento okay so it's up there between sacramento and reno basically oh or tahoe i should say in that in that area it's about an hour east of uh of sacramento oh so that's where tahoe was that far north i guess that makes sense yeah yeah it's all right there it's about an hour 45 to reno so okay in between there that's why when we do live shows in Sacramento we get a lot of Reno people showing up. Yeah. Just screaming

Sheriff's Department. Like what the hell. And it's about two and a half hours to Terralinda California which was our last episode. It was a while ago here. Episode 411.

That was her emo eyes have powers. That was a weird episode. Definitely check that out if you skipped that one. So this is in Nevada County. So they just gave up naming shit here. They're just like, just name it after the next state.

It's close enough. We don't care anymore. Let's pick a word. What's your favorite word? Pick a near state. Area code 530. The motto here, somebody didn't really take a lot of time with this. Naming anything, James.

What's the matter? They told the town manager, come up with a motto. And they were like, how about this? And they said, sure, great. Put it on the website. It's a place to live and thrive. Yeah. Which is annoying because it looks like it rhymes and it doesn't.

It's really annoying to look at and read. And they just changed one word of everybody else's bullshit that's it so um that's uh and work it should say another and play work in a way yeah it's the usual one a little bit of history here grass valley has had several names over the years yeah this is not the original name first it was known as boston ravine which made no sense oh yeah that's makes very little sense so that yeah they later renamed it centerville yeah that's kind of center of california ish uh you know in the as far as east west goes sure uh that's from like the california gold rush era there and then nearby there was nevada city and then gold was discovered in october of 1850

okay well you know where it was discovered this won't shock you gold hill they yeah where do you start looking for the gold well let's start at gold hill and then we'll go fan out from there there's a gold valley we're gonna get into and then gold mountain and then after that we'll look other places yeah so uh the population just spiked up here, obviously. That's why the San Francisco 49ers are the 49ers. It's fascinating what greed and the opportunity of being rich will do. Powerball, Mega Millions, all those things exist because of it. Yeah, look, go to when it's Powerball Day, when it's like over a billion dollars,

go to any Circle K in Phoenix and it's going to be a line out. Try to buy a soda or put $20 on a gas pump because you can't find your debit card. Nope, nope. Good luck. So this went from having basically nothing to within two years it had a post office and a name and it was an official place. And it was renamed Grass Valley and no one knows why. Oh. Is it even a valley?

I mean, it might be, but there's not many more grass than anywhere else. It's not like it's the central grasslands or anything like that. It doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't think I've ever seen this area of the country be green either. It's always brown. It's always brown. It's all brown. Yellow grass.

It's so crazy. You know, that beautiful land between Sacramento and Reno in there. It's all, no one ever says that. Really sought after shit. The gold mining operations around here ended during World War II because that wasn't an essential war thing. So they didn't do that due to to the war production board limitation order 208 stop that mining actual governmental order wow that's the one so after the war they started cranking them back up again but according to one guy who is you know a scholar on this he said by

the mid-1950s mining was no longer profitable in what had been the richest gold mining district in california the richest wasn't profitable not California. The richest. The most gold. Not enough coming out to make for all the equipment you need to do it. All fucked out. Yeah, it's all fucked out, as we always say there. So a lot of the people who came here were tin miners from Cornwall, United Kingdom. If you've seen Deadwood, the Cornish are the miners there always. They have groups of the Cornish.

That was a big deal. Tin? Tin is that fucking valuable? I guess it was then. wood the cornish are the miners there always they have groups of the cornish that was a big deal 10 10 is that fucking valuable i guess it was then so uh a little bit of reviews of this town let's find out what other people think because we've never been here we're gonna be in sacramento that's we'll fly over grass valley but i don't know yeah anything else so four stars grass valley is where i was born and raised oh oh yeah it. It's not only a beautiful area, but has plenty of amazingly rich history with minors and just all around fun Grass Valley quirks. Oh, quirks. The Del Oro Theater is a must, as well as Lazy Dog Ice Cream, both in downtown Grass Valley, the thriving center of Grass Valley.

downtown Grass Valley, the thriving center of Grass Valley. Sometimes there are a few interesting, and this is with asterisks around it, so I assume they mean sarcastically here, interesting folks here. But what town doesn't have some of those? It brings the fun in. Oh, that's the, yeah. The town weirdos are always the fun. That's where the fun is, yeah. Yeah, I need a guy with some quirks standing on a street corner creeping people out.

Well, I look at a small town like that, though. I look at it as who's your weirdest guy walking around all the time? Because that's going to be the personality of the town. It's that weird guy who walks around. Sometimes it's a harmless weird guy who just sits there and waves at people. And sometimes it's somebody who screams at old ladies on the sidewalk. You can tell the vibe of a place there. Three stars, Grass valley is a very small

town everyone seems to know everyone and think that everyone's business is their business that's that's bad that's typical yeah and then they say the trees are nice that's a sentence after that tahoe is an hour away forget grass valley and just go to tahoe yeah anything that's within driving distance of tahoe just be in tahoe that's what i mean yeah tahoe is pretty with the lake and the mountains it's fucking magnificent yeah look at godfather 2 beautiful so fucking destination for all kinds of people oh totally one star finally i was born in cool california, good for you. Cool California. Cool California. And raised over the canyon in Grass Valley, Auburn area.

It used to be a lovely place with lots of nature scenes and lots of areas to go escape the city life of Sacramento and Roseville. You want to get out of that hectic Roseville area. As of the past... Traffic of Roseville. Oh, Roseville's out of control. you. As of the past six to seven years, Grass Valley has turned into an absolute pit, and pit is all caps. There's drugs everywhere. You go, and I personally, there's drugs everywhere you go, and I personally, there's the punctuation's weird here. I'm afraid to walk downtown as a teenage girl at the local high school because

of the Grass Valley gangsters that quote, run the streets. Oh, really? Yeah. They're very rough and very mean and very very disrespectful to tourists and guests. Wow. They just took over. They're like the cowboys in Tombstone. They just took over.

Curly Bill and it's just over here. Smells like somebody died. Wow. I wish the tourism in Grass Valley would come to a screeching halt for my own reasons. But knowing that it won't, I feel obligated to write this review as a citizen of the area. This poor girl just wants to take a walk, James. She wants to take a walk. And the street gangsters.

Population of this town is 13,550. How many how much gang activity can be happening right here? Yeah. What are we talking about? We should be able to round that up pretty quick. I was going to say, like, in L.A., there's way more than 13,000 gangsters. Never mind. Yeah. This is crazy. So way more females than male. I'm talking 55% female here, which is a weird. These gals should shape ship. I mean, yeah.

Get these fucking guys out. The guys are. Ship them up. They have it too easy there. That's why they're like, well, I mean, it's 55% female. So we can vape however we want. The numbers are working for me. Let's just say that.

So median age is a little bit higher. There's a lot of old people here. 85 and older is way over what it usually is. Less married people, more single with children people here. Race of this town, 82.4% white, 0.3% black. Not a lot there uh 0.9 asian uh 11.4 hispanic so it's a pretty for california town it's people don't realize in central california like out of the cities it's mainly yeah it's mainly like you know descendants of okies from that's who came here you know pretty frightening really yeah it's

dust ball escapees that that moved here and populated these 30 minutes away from the coast and it's fucked up yeah oh well it gets meth-y there real fast yeah yeah it goes from crack to meth fast which is a real quick yeah yeah religion in this town 31.6 percent religion so religious so less than the average here. And the most here are other Christian. So I don't know what that is. It could be anything. But there's a few Mormons here, a couple of Lutherans, a Pentecostal thrown around there for fun.

Jesus. You know. Jesus-centric. Just Jesus-y people here. And the unemployment rate here is higher than the national average. The median household income is way lower. Rest of country it's 69 000 here it's 44 906 oh no much lower but the median home cost here 497 400 that's crazy you can add 44 grand a year i don't know how that works what the fuck is that i don't know but we'll find out here because we have for you the Grass Valley, California Real Estate Report.

The average two-bedroom rental here goes for $1,700. So, pricey. That's outrageous. Pricey. $1,700. So, pricey. It's outrageous. Pricey.

Here is a one-bedroom, one-bath, 704-square-foot, ugly little blue trailer. Yeah. It is a sad, sad, it's like a faded blue, too. Like, the sun has really beat it. It's sad. This is not a good existence. No. This is a place they, like, find somebody after they've, like, dropped out of the out of the public eye and like, where have they been for 30 years?

You know where they've been? They live in a little blue trailer in Grass Valley, California. It's got bad carpet, fake wood floors, not good at all. Sixty two thousand dollars. Oh, my. Oh, so compared to 430, that's 440. $60,000? $60,000. Well, it's a shelter here.

I guess. You could buy a fucking sportsman pull-behind trailer cheaper than that, though. Buy a nice truck and sleep in it. I think it'd be better. So here's a, just if you want to build your own place, 24.97 acres, so 25 acres of hillside tree-covered land here. Okay. Okay, it's $229,000 at this place. It's got, like, hills.

It's got two creeks. But there's, it's a swath. What's the fucking draw? Well, it's a swath in the middle of a bunch of shit, too. So I don't know how you'd get, like, anything to it. You can't. It's in the middle of a patch of forest. So there's no road to it. There's no anything.

It's just a patch. Fly a drone over your land. Look at that. I own that. Isn't it pretty? That's awesome. And then here's a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,488-square-foot house. It's kind of your basic average house.

Everything inside is beige or white. Everything. It's HGTV'd. It's a really weird thing, though, is in the master bedroom, there's a TV above the door, which I don't know how that works. I've never seen that before. You'd have to crank your head back. Yeah, that's great. Honey, this is a terrific show.

My neck hurts, though. Yeah. $825,000 for that thing. For 1,400's great. Honey, this is a terrific show. My neck hurts, though. Yeah. $825,000 for that thing. For 1,400 square feet. And it's got a concrete backyard, by the way. They better justify it. How dare you? Makes the trailer look affordable now, right?

Yeah. So, things to do here. Okay, here we go. The Strawberry Music Festival. Okay, another one of these. Another one of these, yeah The Strawberry Music Festival. Okay. Another one of these. Another one of these. Yeah. Strawberry Music Festival.

It's a multi-day family-friendly camp out with activities and entertainment for all ages. And it's an annual reunion for a multi-generational community of music lovers, it says. So old people welcome. All sorts of, they have audience participation at the Band Scramble and the Breakfast Club. Band Scramble. Band Scramble. I don't know what that is. You got to hurry and get on stage. Hog Ranch Radio is a pirate broadcast of performances and important information.

So you can get in on that. They claim you'll have magical musical memories here. So that's terrific. And when you're done there, go to the Sugar Pine Music Festival. They didn't even give a single person that's on the show. No, none of them. There's not one person on there.

I think it's like local bands. Yeah. Then the Sugar Pine Music Festival, they're going to tell you exactly who's on their stages here. Let's start out with Cal Tucky is going to play. California, Kentucky. I'm from California, but I play country music. Right.

We get it. Yeah. We know what you're doing. Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs. What? Yeah. Dirty Dicks. Do they know?

Yeah, I don't think they do. After that, a band just called Lettuce. Just Lettuce. Not like a Lettuce rap. Head of Lettuce, just Lettuce. Playing old Lettuce. Lettuce play, goddammit. Salty Sally's going to do two straight sets the next day.

She gets two. She gets Salty Sally. You get Armchair Boogie is going to play. Yeah. Eddie Roberts and the Lucky Stro lucky strokes i want to mix the lucky strokes with the dirty knobs and see what we get lucky dirty knob stroking is what we're gonna get heart attacks cardiac arrest that's what we're gonna get the dead winter carpenters are playing yeah uh the there's also broken compass bluegrass. Jesus Christ. And what else here?

The Jennifer Hartswick Band. A day of torture, James. This is fucking horrific. I'm sorry. This will clear it all up. The Honey Island Swamp Band. Now that fixed it, right? Now it's better?

Swamp? That's it. So there you go. That is things to do. Crime rate in this town. Yeah. Who the fuck? I want to know, by the way, Crime rate in this town. Who the fuck? I want to know, by the way, also Carol in Wonderland.

There's somebody for you. These are all people that the only time they're on the radio is via pirate radio. This is music to off your family, too. Yeah. They don't even know that that's why they're playing, but it's happening all around them. They don't know that they're music. And also, there's a band called Diggin called digging dirt as well yeah so they like dirt apparently so i want to see lettuce play that's what i really want to say i'll bet they're the

shining star lettuce is playing they're playing from 9 30 to 11 p.m they're closing out saturday night on the yuba stage so yeah i would say they're a big fucking deal. Big, big deal. It's Saturday night. It's big time. Crime rate in this town, what we're interested in here, property crime is more than twice the national average here. Okay. Not great. And it's 13,000 people.

James, there has to be gangs out of control. It must be. Well, then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and assault, the Mount Rushmore of a crime here, is almost twice the national average. So, again. That little girl that wants to jog might be absolutely right. She's terrified. Yeah, this sounds like a terrifying little town. Well, let's go back in time a little bit here.

Okay. To a time when maybe it was less terrifying because there was less people here. This is by far. It's grown some because now it's a suburb of Sacramento. It's an hour away, so you can commute there. But there was a little less out here in the 90s. Let's talk about the 90s. Let's go back 30 years exactly and talk about 1994.

Oh, yeah. We all know what was going on in 1994. It was good. Yeah. It was good. Boys to men. Ace of bases ruling the world. It's a. Yeah. It was good. Boyz II Men. Ace of Bases ruling the world. It's a tough time.

It's a weird time, 94. You had a transition. Hip-hop was becoming like coming into its own like commercially and becoming a thing. And you had like grunge was kind of dying out and all that kind of thing. Michael Jordan and Larry Bird were playing horse for McDonald's food on TV. Michael Jordan was playing baseball in 1994. He wasn't even playing fucking basketball. Was it 93 they were doing that then?

Yeah, it was before that. It was like the late 80s, early 90s. Yeah, like Dream Team time. The commercials, yeah. Yeah, that was in 92, the Dream Team, wasn't it? Yeah, it was around then. By 94, Jordan was playing baseball. He wasn't even playing basketball in 94.

So let's talk about some young ladies here. Let's talk about, this is just like the teenage girl who didn't want to walk through town because of the gangsters. One young lady named Dawn Renee Donaldson. So Dawn Donaldson. Both the young ladies we're going to talk about have alliterative names. Fantastic. Dawn Donaldson. Easy to keep straight.

And Chrissy Campbell. Yes. I was like, thank fuck. That makes it so much easier for me to remember everybody's name. Dawn is 16 years old. Okay. She was moved here from Montana with her family when she was nine. Oh.

She's been here seven years. They're from Polson, Montana. Yeah. And I guess they still go back for the summers. Olson, Montana. Yeah. And I guess they still go back for the summers. She would still all the time go back to spend her summers there so she could go swimming and boating with her grandfather at Flathead Lake.

Okay. Not bad. Her mom said, I was a single parent. The economics weren't good there. And I had read, I think, in Money Magazine about Grass Valley being one of the top ten small towns in the country. You did not read that in there. What the fun? Nice place to be. Good schools, climate, and economy.

I don't believe it. When you see articles that say top 10 this and there are people that see that and go, I'm moving there. And they just back up and go there. Isn't that amazing? It fucking works. They do it all the time. Can you imagine that that's

why i could not because i'd unseen too didn't even visit just packed it up and moved and in 94 it's not like she could go really in depth and go on google and fucking dive in and none of that stuff the internet 94 was aol chat rooms that's what the internet was yeah it was a lot of jerking off dudes for for normal people unless you were like a supercomputer nerd that was on real good at it. You know, the other shit that there was also stuff. But, yeah, so she's she was a single mom and just said, well, Money Magazine says it's a great place to be on there. OK, she said, I'm kind of sorry we left Montana. I'll probably go back there someday, Linda says.

So she meets and marries, while she's in Grass Valley, she meets a man named Marie Donaldson. So that's where the Donaldson came from. And started her own sign painting business in Grass Valley. So that's what mom was doing. Dawn liked Montana

and was always telling her mom she'd like to move back eventually. So she got into rodeo barrel racing because her stepfather was a steer wrestler. I shit you not, this is real. Murray. By himself? Yeah. How did she meet Murray?

Murray was like taking down a wild animal and she was like, that's hot. I'll marry him. Mom met Murray. Yeah, down a wild animal and she was like, that's hot. That's how mom met Murray. So a steer wrestler? I didn't know that was a title. Yeah. Does that need to be done for some sort of, not agricultural, but some sort of. Farming business. Yeah.

Is that part like you have to wrestle it to the ground before you can do that? Or is this like for show? Is this like rodeo where it's not really a necessary thing? It's got to be that, right? It can't just be like, well, steers are out of control. Well, call the wrestler. Get him over here. Yeah.

Put him in line. He gets in there, comes over like knee pads on. He's like, come on. Cuts a promo first. He's like, I am going to make you into ground beef. That's right. He's coming off the top barbed wire rope. That's right.

Oh, my God. The ribs. Oh, I'm going to cut them and eat them. They're going to be so succulent from your body when I wrestle you to the ground, brother. I'm so good when you cut this steer up. It will already be tender. Everything will be like filet. I'm going to make a roast out of your rump tonight. That's's what's gonna happen when we get together in the squared circle baby it's gotta be some sort of rodeo thing

i've never heard of that i have no i've seen guys i've seen guys fucking manhandle them with their hands and bring them to the ground by grabbing the rack i know that's a special job yeah i didn't know that was like the bring in the wrestler and he comes in all right it was an event in the rodeo wow so she got it's got to be in the rodeo because that's how she got into barrel racing and that's a rodeo event so that's all i can imagine uh dawn's got sisters she's got four sisters ranging from three to twenty years old well son of a bitch so she's in the middle there somewhere out of five girls. Five girls. Oh, my God.

Anywhere from three to 20? That's bananas. Three to 20. Linda is raising five girls. Oh, God. Think about that, man. Wow. That is something.

So the family here in Grass Valley, they have several horses. They have a six-acre property. Hell, yeah. Where they keep several horses, which that's expensive to keep horses steer wrestling and sign painting must pay very well he's got to be the fucking intercontinental champ of this i'm telling you oh he's got a belt he's got a belt for sure yeah it's a big belt dawn at one point as a teenager here worked for speaking of uh athletes worked for retired

professional football player russ francis remember russ francis do i remember him he's a tight end i don't know if you remember him but he's a he was a tight end he's a big player 49ers and oh yeah really a good player so uh big famous player too yeah apparently so he did uh he played for the niners so this is outside you know northern california here and i believe he did uh he played for the niners so this is outside you know northern california here and i believe he did some wrestling in the mid 80s as well i think he was in the wrestlemania 2 battle royal if i'm not mistaken how about that i had a bunch of football players that fridge perry and like a bunch of guys like that and it's a two-time wrestle steer though i don't think he's for that he ain't a steer wrestler, tell you that much. He hires a 16-year-old girl

to do that. Yeah. You know, Russ Francis used to be a neighbor of theirs until he moved away, so they lived in a neighborhood with a retired 49er.

They're doing well. In the early 90s after all those Super Bowls and everything, so. Do you think she does, like, those elaborate sign paintings on the side of buildings of the brick buildings

that are, like, mad impressive? I don't know. Maybe that. Maybe, I that maybe i mean how much steer it must be hard to wrestle a steer so you got to get paid a lot it's like i wouldn't want to do it it doesn't seem like something i would do i'd be afraid i'd get gored i guess when dawn was working for a russ francis she would take care of his horses and also help with the housework as well oh so she was like a horse tender slash housekeeper which is a strange job that i've never heard of before um her mother so she was like a horse tender slash housekeeper which is a strange job that i've never heard of before um her mother said she was really connected with animals when she was

a kid she even had an iguana that she was really close to really she just likes animals iguanas are weird they're fucking i've never met a nice one they're they're weird they bite they whip you with their tail oh that tail is vicious uh my step stepfather had one, and it got out of its cage, and we thought it was gone. And then like a month later, it was just hanging off the blinds. But it was small when it escaped, and now it was like a full-size fucking iguana. So now there's just this giant, terrifying iguana just hanging on the blinds. We're like, ah! We were like, it had been just creeping around the house for months, two months.

Eating God knows what. God knows what. Every cricket and bug, and it's Arizona, so there's always shit. Oh, God, yeah. Who knows what it was fucking eating. Scorpions. Enough to get big, I'll tell you that much. Did you ever lose a cat, maybe?

Maybe. I was going to say, yeah. My mother's little lap dog gone. I don't know. Maybe that's what happened to it. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery+,

religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions,

and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital

to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case,

covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. So holy shit. dawn is estranged from her birth father doesn't meet her birth father until she's in her teens yeah so that's connected with animals her and her mom steer wrestling stepdad and an out of the picture dad is how her whole thing is going here she's a student at silver springs high school okay which is a it's I don't know why she's here. This is the strange part.

Okay. It's a very small school with about 70 students in it. And it's primarily for high school students who are pregnant or young mothers. Oh. So either they're pregnant or just had kids and they're 16. But she's not pregnant and has no kids. Not either of those things neither of those things so out of the 70 i don't know how many of them have no kids and aren't pregnant but dawn is in that group i don't understand why she's going to the school but

who knows here isn't it night no it's high school it's regular day school you go well it's not like a not one of those like pho fly-by-night high school programs. Paradise Valley used to have school at night for the girls that had babies and couldn't be there during the day because they had shit to do. I remember that. Remember being in like 10th grade and there'd be like the pregnant girl and you're like, oh no, what's going to happen there? I remember being very worried and thinking, oh, my God, somebody did that. And like, we're the same age. She must be terrified.

Because if I did that to her, I'd be fucking terrified. He better be here sweating it, too. He better be one of these boys running around here. Man. Dawn, though, she wasn't interested in motherhood or any of that shit. She was talking about joining the Marines. Wow. Yeah.

She's like, I'm going to go. I i mean she's already doing barrel racing and she's does rugged shit she hangs around a steer wrestler for fuck's sake i mean you know she does interesting shit too every day from the school she goes to to the jobs she does it's all bizarre anyhow it's all very strange um she's very energetic and gregarious but she also at night she likes to sit down and take it easy and quiet she likes to write poetry oh as well yeah no we don't have her poetry but she writes poetry oh yeah that's what i really wanted to hear a 15 year old's poetry you know what i want to hear a teenager's poetry. Nothing more than that. If I go my whole life. That's all we have for the next two hours for you guys, just teenage poetry.

It's just teenage prose. It's all about, you know, they didn't have what I wanted in the cafeteria. Yeah. Bobby doesn't like me. 16-year-old sonnet. Yeah. I don't want to hear it. That's good.

That would be the worst show ever if we were like, I'm going to read many, many paragraphs of this young lady's poetry. Maybe that's our next show. Did you ever go out with a girl in high school who wrote poetry? Yeah. Oh, it was a nightmare. It's good. I went out with a girl who had a whole book of it and wanted to fucking read it to me. It was all about how her sister was mean to her and her other sister.

It was a fucking mess she was a twin and a middle child oh there was a thing about poetry is boy do they want you to hear it oh they want you to hear and this girl was had an older sister and a younger sister and then was a part of a set of twins in the middle yes and the twin was like a state fucking champion track athlete and had straight a's and all and this girl was just like i'm sad and just wrote poetry she just needs somebody to talk to her and wanted to tell me about it great that's what i wanted 17 oh shit so uh yeah as she returned dawn did she had just come back in 1994 she's a nice nice girl, Dawn. She went and spent two weeks in Oregon after the school year ended taking care of her grandmother.

Oh. What a nice kid, right? Yeah. I don't know if there was any barrels to roll while she was up there, but who knows? She's got a lot of time to write some poetry, though. Yeah. So she comes back to Grass Valley after this two weeks, and she wants to hang out now. She wants to see her friends, wants to go party.

She's been sitting with Grandma in the middle of nowhere in Oregon for two weeks. Very little excitement. She's bored. In 94, one thing I will say, as we were teenagers in 94, you wanted to go do shit and smoke weed and get out and party and get the hell out of your house, basically. There was no internet, so there was nothing to do at your house. Watching the same videos over and over and over again.

Dr. Dre video with the leaf blurred out. Thanks. This is what I want to watch over and over again. And the copyrighted Raiders logo. Great. This is what I'm seeing now. We know what it says. I know what that is.

We know it's in his hand. I know that one says White Sox. We know it's in his hand that smoke's coming out of that's making Warren G giggle. I know what that is. We know it's in his hand. I know that one says white socks. We know it's in his hand that smoke's coming out of that's making Warren G giggle. We know what that is. Guess what? We're not stupid. I'll bet that's old English by his foot, too. You don't have to blur the label.

That's why BET was great. They didn't blur out shit. They didn't? Fuck no. BET didn't blur out shit. So you watch BET, they're smoking joints, weed leafs, and socks logos. I didn't even know about BET until I was like fucking 16. It wasn't.

I guess it's Arizona. Yeah, it wasn't. There's like eight black people in Phoenix. Never mind. That makes sense. It wasn't very popular. That would make sense. That's regional, I would think.

I'm sure down the cable list it was rated very low in Arizona. I assume you're probably right. There was a Spanish version that was much higher rated, I'm sure down the cable list it was rated very low in Arizona. Right. I assume you're probably right. There was a Spanish version that was much higher rated, I'm sure. So her friend that she's going to hang out with is Christina Maria Campbell. Chrissy, she goes by. She's also 16. And, yeah, she's about to start her junior year in high school, just like Dawn. And apparently Chrissy had moved here about three years ago, and her and Dawn became friends pretty fast.

Yeah. Where's Chrissy from? Right away. Well, we'll talk about Chrissy. She's got a very interesting origin story. She's got like a superhero origin story here. Awesome. So they were really good friends.

They'd go out together, hang out to the mall or whatever that teenage girls do. They do sleepovers together. Yeah. So, uh, Christina had been adopted as an infant. Yes. Uh,

her parents are Kathleen and Douglas Campbell who adopted her from Mexico city when she was an infant. Oh yeah. So she was like in a Mexico city orphanage. Just interesting. Yeah. That's tough. Um,

so the family included two other daughters as well that they had, I think they're natural children here. And Doug, her father, Douglas Campbell, said, I had a tough stepfather, and ever since I can remember, I wanted to raise a child and maybe give her or him a break. Oh, that's nice. I'm going to have kids and be nice to them. I'm going to fix this balance in the universe here. I'm going to have kids and be nice to them. That'll be, I'm going to fix this balance in the universe here. I'm going to, I'm going to care about some kids.

That's really not. If I have kids, I'll be much nicer to him. I'm going to go get some kids so I can be nice to them. So I can fix this. I'm going to make sure I have them. Right. The psychology is very A to B on that one. I mean, it's, it's pretty, pretty obvious.

So the family, they lived in San Jose for a long time. Hell yeah. And three years ago, they moved to Grass Valley, he says, for its lifestyle. Oh, not that it all went bad for us in San Jose? No, he said he wanted to slow down. He said San Jose was a hectic place, and it was dangerous there, too. And he said, quote, I came up here not only because I'm in my early 50s, because they adopted her when they were in their 40s. So they weren't going to have any more kids of their own.

So they're older parents. Well, he'd have rode it out for 20 years. He was about to quadruple his property value. Yeah, yeah. But he'd also have to live there for another 20 years. And then what was he going to do? Sell it and die? He's in his mid-50s already.

Good point. Yeah, he's going to be 70. Ah, there. And then what was he going to do? Sell it and die? He's in his mid-50s already. Good point. Yeah, he's going to be 70. Ah, there. I sold my house. Now I can die happy. Now I can get my. Yeah. Now that I just want to sit down and I'll go somewhere that I love to sit down.

No, he's got three daughters and he wants to raise them in a safer environment and all that kind of shit. So he says also to slow down and have a safer environment. That's what he wants is going down and chill out. Take it down a gear, basically. Sure, sure. Semi-retirement type of deal, I think. So her father said that Christina didn't make friends very easily in Grass Valley. So it was hard for her to make friends. She said her father said that Christinaina didn't hang out with quote

flocco people and had never gone to a party that's what she called them flocco people doesn't that mean fat i i don't know i i thought it did but um i don't know i'm not sure but her father said she'd never even gone to a party she wasn't she was kind of the dawn was the more adventurous one and christina was kind of the more reserved one here um she was artistic and liked to do things like that her stepfather said we pursued things she liked she played the piano and she liked to do pencil drawings they are throughout the house she's pretty gifted so great yeah that's what she does doesn't like to hang out with flocco people um and she said also the father said also there was there wasn't hardly any other mexican people in grass

valley yeah that's tough and she said she's looks mexican i mean so she said too it was hard just to get into you know groups of kids that were already established she is mexican yeah she's from mexico yeah actually mexican so she the other thing too when you move in a small town it's harder because that were already established. She is Mexican. Yeah. She's from Mexico. Yeah. Actually Mexican. So she, the other thing too, when you move in a small town, it's harder because all the groups are established. Yeah.

Things don't, aren't as fluid. Things are pretty set. So when you come in, there's already groups of kids that have been hanging out for years and it's hard to infiltrate that. I would think, you know,

it's hard. And they all have stories from fucking when that kid was eight. We're now fucking 19. And it's so weird. They grew up together. They know each other. They all went to the same elementary school in a small town. They were all there when they earned their nickname.

It's weird. And then you come in and everyone's kind of suspicious of you. Who's this fucking asshole now? So I could see that. So Christina just had her first boyfriend and their relationship just ended here in july of 1994 first heartbreak first boyfriend first heartbreak um and she went she's gonna go stay overnight at her friend don's house here to you know write some poetry it was one of those things yeah she's sad she wants go. Her and her friend are going to write poetry together.

Yeah, I know a girl perfect for you right now. Watch dad wrestle a steer in the front yard. That'll make everybody a little more upbeat, I think, here. So July 23, 1994 here. They're together at Dawn's house, and they've had tons of sleepovers, so this is very normal here. And they're going to leave the house sometime that evening the parents do not know

they leave they just kind of slip out which is very 1994 teenager that's you just take out or is it the doors open you guys are they're allowed to leave they just don't tell anybody they know no no they're not allowed to go out at night and not tell anybody that's she's 16 and these are these are good parents that keep track of their

kids they're not just like i don't know fucking kid's been gone a few days she'll turn up she goes out with her boyfriend i don't know what the hell they're doing like they're not like that these are parents that pay attention and actually care about their children so don dislocated a screen for this for sure yeah yeah so uh that or just waited till everybody went to sleep and snuck out of the house that seems and it's a big house too with a big property so who knows if they thought they were going outside to look at the horse and they slipped away you don't know here so they leave the house at some point here is a her sister shanny as that's how she goes by S-H-A-N-I, Shani Campbell. This is Christy's sister.

She wrote a thing about her here in a blog that she has. And she says that the sister here, Shani, says she didn't really go anywhere during the summer months because her friends didn't live nearby. She's explaining the town at the time. nearby she's explaining the town at the time she said where we lived an unplanned trip to the grocery store which took 30 minutes one way was as exciting as it got even for most summer days oh boy there's nothing here at the time we're out of eggs yay yay we're going to town fuck yeah baby where's all the shit paper are we out oh yes it's a milk run i'm gonna ride my dirty ass into town all right it's stanking oh man i can't wait yeah people are gonna smell me coming to town boy so yeah they did all of that and she said that she was she

was quote half jealous and half happy that chrissy was going quote to town okay and she said that she was she was quote half jealous and half happy that chrissy was going quote to town okay and she said that's what you call civilization when you live in the middle of nowhere town so that's yeah going to town which is not even a big town just to the town right she said even though i was stuck at home with no future plans of adventure i knew chrissy had been held up in her room for the past week or so after her boyfriend broke up with her so jealousy turned to gratefulness that she was getting out so she was like oh man yeah chrissy needs to get the fuck out of the room she's been in there you know writing making pencil sketches of her sadness we need to we need to do this yeah jesus this is. She, her sheets are gross and crusty.

We got to get her out of there. Permanent body line in the sheet. Man. Um, she said she called Chrissy, her best friend. She said, yeah, they were only two years apart, two years younger. She said, so, you know, they'd fight and everything like that, but she'd also help her and take care of her. She said, Chrissy would go in the public bathrooms with her because she was afraid to go in public bathrooms

alone when she was a teenager. She said that she would yell at her though for using her makeup or for coming into her room. Just like every teenager. Don't come in my room. You can't come past this point. Did you use my makeup? These are typical

things here. Unless she said that her sister's favorite thing in the world, Chrissy's favorite thing, is when her sister would do her Fire Marshall Bill impression. How 90s is that? Big Jim Carrey fan. How 90s is that? You had to go, do all that shit. Then you could come in and use her makeup.

That's fantastic. That's fucking funny. Then you could come in and use her makeup. That's fantastic. That's fucking funny. So she said that like the past week her sister was basically in hibernation, she called. She said, I had to bring dinner into her room for her a few times because she wouldn't come out to eat. She just sat in there.

That's depression. My God. Jesus. Yeah, that's first boyfriend. Yeah. She doesn't know, oh, yeah, this happens and then you feel better after a while. She's like, this pain will never stop. Right. I didn't know that an overload of processed sugar would fix this.

I had no fucking clue. Apparently it does. I had one jolt colon. I'm feeling much better now. It's the 90s, baby. Go get yourself a jolt and get back out there. Come on. Grab a jolt and a carton of Haagen-Dazs.

You're going to be so smiley real quick. And put on BET. Nothing is blurred out. And they loved rap music, too. Dawn would bump it from her room. She loves rap music. So these are girls that we would have hung out with. The way they're described, I'm like,

oh, I would have hung out with these chicks. Oh, they're into in-living color. Gone to parties. Yeah. They get the jokes. Yeah, you're doing impressions. I don't even care if it's a hacky thing that everybody else was doing at the time if you got a half decent impression as a teenage girl i like you we're gonna be friends when i'm a kid there's

only some homie the clown let's get after yeah that didn't sound good that sounded like an adult saying that if you do this as a teenage girl i like you i meant that to you from a 15-year-old's mouth, not from my mouth now. Come over. Not from a man in his 40s, because that would be fucking weird. I want a line of talent show girls at your front door. Yeah, I don't need that at all. Me closing the fucking curtains. Get out of here. No.

It was a joke. Fucking weirdos. What do you think, I work for Nickelodeon? Leave me alone. I was just kidding. Just kidding i i meant when i was younger when i was your age what you weren't even born yet so go away because i'm your mom's age man so she said the sister said she was familiar with dawn she said she'd stayed at their house a few times, so she knew her from that. She said she never heard of a guy they were supposed to hang out with that night that they were going to, she was going to sleep over at Dawn's, a guy named Sam.

She said she didn't know anything about Sam except that they were supposed to hang out with him. Okay. So I guess she said that Chrissy was hanging out with Don that day. And the sister said, quote, at this point in my life, I would have been labeled a goody two shoes. Someone who didn't break rules, thought sex was gross and certainly wouldn't be drinking or smoking. She said every time Chrissy talked about sex, I would gag and squeal. Yet be amazed at how grown up she was compared to me. It was a big difference between 16 and 14.

There it is, yeah. Junior and freshman are a big, big difference there. She said even though two years separated us, she said she, meaning Chrissy, had started smoking cigarettes a few months prior, and I just thought it was the worst thing she could do. Every teenager was just, if you were a hangout kind of a kid you smoked cigarettes back then there's cigarettes around yeah yep she said uh even though i was a brat i never once told on her and she would freely smoke around me and tell me when she was going to do something she wasn't supposed to do her sister was helping her cover her tracks and shit here she said as we stood in my bedroom she proudly gloated how a boy was picking her up and how she was going to smoke weed for the first time this weekend.

Oh, wow. So she's psyched. Yeah, she was like, I'm hanging out with a boy and smoking weed. It's going to be weed. It's a very 16-year-old girl. So she said she grabbed a tiny bottle of alcohol my aunt had given me purely for decoration as drinking in my opinion was just wrong i don't know if it was a pretty little bottle or some i don't know what it was one of those like a fifth of fucking why would you give a why would you give a 13 year old a

bottle of crown royal and go isn't that velvet bag nicely what a weird thing to do you can store things in there as a decoration it's just weed that goes in there, right? I guess. I've never seen anything else go in a Crown Royal bag other than weed. Like bowls and shit like that you keep in there, glass things. It's all things for weed. Maybe if you're a classy crackhead, you could keep your crack pipe in there maybe. I don't want it to get scratched.

Very classy. I don't want to break my crack pipe. This is my favorite one. So she said that she, drinking in my opinion was just wrong, and she started sipping it like the badass older sister she always lived up to be. We only stood there for several minutes before a little truck pulled up beside our property. I watched from my window as her 4'9 frame, she's a tiny girl, 4'9 frame, dressed as always, in her big, long, baggy, gangster white pants,

gangsters in quotes, 90s pants, big, giant, fucking baggy pants, and black t-shirt, walked toward a little yellow beat-up truck. Cool chick is what it sounds like. You know what I mean? Like I said, we were teenagers. We'd be like,

that's a cool chick right there. So Christina goes to Dawn's house to spend the night like we said, but then she's not, they're not there in the morning. Okay. The next day, Linda Donaldson, Dawn's mom said that the family without Dawn and Christina went to a

rodeo because it was planned. Yep. You know, Papa's wrestling some steers. You've got to be there to support. He's the Brahma bull right now because the rock doesn't exist. Plus, he could get gored, and this might be the last time we're going to see him. So let's get in there and give Dad our support here. So she said, quote, I had no idea they were planning on leaving.

She said that she didn't think her daughter ran away or anything. She thought the girls got up earlier and left. She didn't even think they left the night before. She had no idea what happened. It was 5 a.m. They're out down at the diner getting biscuits and gravy or some shit. Maybe they went out for a walk or to somebody's house or maybe there was an event. Who the hell knows?

But she said we were all happy. She just left with her purse. She just left, took off, took her purse. That was the only thing missing there. And there's no phone back then or anything. Did she take her phone with her? None of that. They said they only realized that the girls weren't there

when they checked on the girls the next morning. They looked all around. But when they came back from the rodeo, they still weren't around. There's no note. There's no cell phones to text them, where are you, none of that kind of shit. So later on, they go to the police and report them missing that afternoon because they can't find them, which, I mean, I get it, I guess. If they're not normally kids who wander off, like if it was me as a teenager,

eight hours of not hearing from me, don't call the cops. I could be doing anything. But if your kid is, like, you know, reliable and not a fuck-up, then probably you should call the cops. Even in that case, if you're a girl, fucking... That's what I was going to say. If it's a girl and I haven't heard from her in ten minutes, I'm finding out where the fuck she is. If it's my daughter, it's different. If it's my son, I'm going, what is this asshole doing now doing now that's what i'd say who do you think you are walking away and

not telling you that's the conversation we have yeah my father would have never thought for a one second of time that something had happened to me he would have just thought i was doing something bad not paying attention and listening that's all yeah doing something i'm not allowed to know about because i'll have to yell at him about it. He wouldn't have said, I bet he's in danger. I'm worried about him. That wasn't what it was. And if he is in danger, it's of his own volition.

Because he's a jerk-off. That's what he would have said. He's 6'4". He's fine. No one's fine. He'll handle himself. He brought this upon himself. He's an idiot. And then he'd be mad at me rather than being worried about me. That's the difference there.

That's the answer. They look for them, look for them. No one can find them. Oh, boy. They disappear into thin air. What? So they say, well, where the fuck did they go? So through the teenage grapevine, they find out that they were last seen by a friend

because they got a ride apparently from dawn's house yeah to a friend's house and that dropped them off in that beat up yellow truck same truck same same beat up yellow truck uh now this friend said that the friend dropped them off at a guy named Samuel Strange's house. Really? Sam Strange. Oh, my God. Yeah, they had just started. They've known each other a long time, but they just started kind of hanging out.

Sam has known the Donaldson family a long time, like since he was a kid. Sam is 21 years old, by the way. What? Which is not okay. That's a no-go. That is a no-go. That is a no-go. I remember the 21-year-old with the 16-year-old girlfriend, and it was fucking weird. Weird guy, yeah.

You're like, that's a weird, strange guy. So Sam Arola Strange, A-R-O-L-A is his middle name, Arola Strange. So, yeah, they had just started hanging out. He'd known the Donaldson family for about seven years, though, um he'd known the donaldson family for about seven years though so he'd known them a long time and has just started hanging out with the daughter which seems creepy he met her yeah he met her when he was four uh he was what 12 12 no he was seven years from 21 so he was 14 yeah and she was what nine that's weird that's weird it's too weird it's too yeah if they were 35 and 30 who cares but this is 21 and 16 are very different he's equating it as she was a child then but so was i so as they as they hc's them as the same person

you're not new 21 and 16 are not in the same ballpark as far as life experience, maturity. You've got bills and she's got looking forward to getting a license. That's weird. Yeah. Sam should have bills, but he's kind of a fuck up. That's the problem with Sam. Yeah. He drives a 1978 Ford Courier pickup truck.

Ford Courier pickup truck. I don't know. It's a shit pickup truck. It's a dilapidated hunk of shit. I know that much here. It's just a, shit pickup truck. It's a dilapidated hunk of shit. I know that much here. Just a normal ass pickup truck. Yeah, nothing crazy. Apparently, he had not been around his family for the last couple of years. He just kind of gone and hung out with the bad crowd.

And he just recently been allowed back into the family home. Oh, he earned it. Not only to to come back, but to live there as well. And it was with the explicit agreement that he would not associate with certain friends and promised he would, quote, maintain a clean and sober attitude. Attitude.

Yeah. In other words, Sam's been a fuck-up for a few years here and not a great influence on two 16-year-old girls, especially one who's pretty innocent and just kind of is excited to smoke weed for the first time you know what i mean yeah

this is not the crowd clearly the one that smokes a lot of weed yeah this guy's probably paid for three abortions already you know what i mean and he this isn't he doesn't need to hang out with them weed is the least of his problems it's something super It's something heavier than that that he's used to. Absolutely. So the cops go talk to Sam and they say, you know, what of it, motherfucker? Where's she at? Where's the girls? And he said, oh, they did come to my house that night.

He's very cooperative. He didn't hide or anything. He said they did come to my house. They stayed there for about 20 minutes, maybe a half hour. And he said, after that, they took off, and they said they were going to hitch a ride into town. Oh. Which sounds like something that you do in 1967, not 1994. Hitch a ride into town.

30 minutes away? By 94, by the time I was in my teens, I knew hitchhiking was not an option. Yeah. That was, an option. Yeah. That was, you will get murdered. The 80s had happened, and bodies were everywhere. And they all started by putting their thumb out. But too teenage. But then again, I'm also, I grew up an hour from New York City, not in the middle of nowhere. You know what I mean?

So maybe in a rural area, it's different. You can trust people more. I'm not sure. I do remember walking home from school school and anytime anybody was joking around you know people would walk down the busy street hitchhiking and people were laughing at what are you doing yeah obviously you know you put it on yeah if they stop you got to run away because that means they're trying to molest you it's probably what we would do if they run the other direction holy shit oh guy's got his dick out already.

This isn't good. He's ready. He pulled over with his pants down. Holy shit. We were just kidding. So Sam Strange says, quote, they said that they, he said they walked away saying they were going to hitchhike to Grass Valley to party. That was the quote he gave. So they said, well, where were you the rest of the night?

And he said, well, I was home and I stayed home and watched TV. They stopped by for a half hour. They were like, anybody see you at home watching TV? No, not at all. His parents were out. They were gone. Out of town. So he had the house to himself. So he was like, it was just me by myself watching TV. That's not good. No, and you can't, like, check his internet

activity then to make sure he was doing shit, because there is none. There's none of that. So we can't check his Netflix queue and see what he's been watching and if he had something on. None of that shit. So they were like, so two girls come over. That's coming one day, right? Yeah, absolutely. They're cracking a case that way some way.

Absolutely. They're totally going to be doing it. What were you doing? You were watching? Well, it says here you weren't watching that. It says here you weren't. Hulu was says here you were on Pornhub. Hulu was asking you if you were still watching. Yeah, and your computer was activating Pornhub.

You're a liar. So they said you have no witnesses that saw you. Two girls who are now missing were last seen with you. Right. And you have no fucking alibi. And nobody can corroborate anything you said. You're kind of a scumbag, too, in town. And you're not trustworthy.

We're going to have to go ahead, and there's inconsistencies in your accounts. One minute you said this, next minute you said that. We're a little leery of this. We're going to have to ask you to take a polygraph test. Oh. He says, no problem. Takes a polygraph test, passes? He says, no problem. Takes a polygraph test, passes it with flying colors.

Oh. So, okay, well, moving on. Where'd they go party? You know what I mean? I guess we were wrong. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky,

and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother****er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the

paranormal, or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor.

I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal. I understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media would have to come to the conclusion that I killed my wife.

Hi, my name is Zach Stewart-Pontier. I'm one of the filmmakers behind The Jinx, and I'm excited to bring you the official Jinx podcast. We'll be revisiting all six episodes of part one and watching along with part two as it airs on max starting April 21st. Bye bye. The official jinx podcast. Listen on max or wherever you get your podcasts.

Then 12 days later. Yeah. After these girls. Two weeks later. No sign of the girls. Oh my God. As you can imagine, being a parent of. Losing their fucking minds.

Losing their fucking minds. Yeah. So before they are finally found, actually, they're found dead. Oh, no. About 100 feet off of Ponderosa Way, south of the Highway 20. They've just been dumped in a remote area. Oh, no. It's an area where people

dump garbage and teenagers go to party it's a known like because nobody else would go there except if they're dumping garbage so it's to disappear yeah you can go back there hide behind the garbage and smoke weed and drink 40s and all that kind of shit so that's where they're found it's a remote area it's about four and a half miles from Sam Strange's house. And his house is on the outskirts of Grass Valley, and he has some acreage too. These people all are on the outskirts, and they have like horse properties basically. So the girls were hidden under styrofoam panels on top of a trash heap. They were literally thrown in the garbage.

Yeah. Just two teenage girls just tossed on a trash heap. That's the way they were hiding them, just styrofoam boards on top. That'll do it. Trash on top of them. Yep, trash on top of them. Yeah, no one will notice. It'll mix in with all the other trash.

That's disgusting. Both the girls have been murdered here. They didn't die of natural causes and then throw themselves in a trash heap they had crushed skulls oh dear god as a result of multiple blunt force trauma injuries to both

of them their skulls were shattered they said both of them they were just fucking destroyed they'll find out they have an idea of what the murder weapon could be they believe it's an axe. They believe these girls were like a maul. These girls' skulls

were just destroyed by somebody. There's no proportional universe where this is a thing that you should do. This is horrible. There's nothing They were trying to rob me. There's no self-defense that you can justify that that level

of violence that's fucking crazy it's horrific uh this is the middle of the summer in california it's very hot they've decomposed heavily and back away from the ocean like that it is oh yeah it's hot oh it's 100-something degrees out there. And they had to be identified through dental records and DNA because you couldn't even identify them, how badly their skulls were destroyed and the fact that they had decomposed a lot. So, yeah, they said they'd been dead for at least a week. And they said it was odd because this is a favorite party spot

for the area's teenagers, so it's odd that nobody would have come across this in a week and a half in the summertime when kids go to the party at night, even during the week. Somebody came across it and probably just said something like somebody threw a cat in that pile or something. Maybe. Yeah. Something smell. Oh, that smells. Oh, this place smells. I guess teenagers. We don't care. We wouldn't know. We wouldn't give a fuck. Let's investigate to make sure there's no dead people. Where's the free alcohol? That's where I'll be.

You just walk over there where the smell is less. That's what you would have done, honestly. It's sad to say it, but we weren't looking. That's what we did. Because otherwise, then we'd have to call the cops, and then they come, and then we have to hide the beer in the weed. Yeah. And fuck that. No way.

And nobody thought there's probably a body in there. then fuck that no way nobody nobody thought there's probably a body in there they just thought there's there's an animal in there that's what everybody would say oh it stinks they make a joke about that dude farted and then they'd move 30 feet to the east and that would be that hey you didn't shower today you stink bro fucking kenny farted man again jesus dude you got the rankest farts, bro. Seriously. We shouldn't have gone to Denny's before we came out here. What crawled inside you and died not having any fucking idea? Jesus, that's so fucking horrible.

So they, in addition to, oh, by the way, they said there is no evidence just to make sure that Dawn was pregnant. Because at first they were like, she went to the pregnant girl's school. She's probably pregnant. Also, no evidence of sexual assault sexual assault to each victim and we'll we'll make sure there's a difference between someone having sexual activity and someone being assaulted so yeah so there's no uh like forced evidence of forced sexual assault here so they also say that there is no blood at the dump site at all interesting no blood so they think that the killings occurred elsewhere yeah they got dumped

and must have been held for a minute too to make all the blood be gone because there's no they don't find any blood uh here they said this is one of the sheriff's people said they were virtually unidentifiable we id'd them through their DNA. The speculation started brewing all over the county. There was a concern about a satanic group about a hitchhiker murderer. Yeah, draining bodies. Immediately, these two teenage girls are like, oh, my God, they could have been sacrificed by a satanic cult. I like how they don't, they think satanic group or some like, you know, drooling hitchhiker murderer rather than just maybe just a pervert

who's out there. You know what I mean? Nowadays we'd go, okay, who are the local perverts? We start there. And satanic group would be like the 50th thing we talk about. Could it have been,

I don't know, satanic group maybe? I don't fucking know. I don't know. We've exhausted maybe? I don't fucking know. I don't know. We've exhausted everything else. Yeah. We've exhausted everything else. But two 16-year-old girls found in a heap, I assume some sick fuck did sexual things to these girls and had to disappear them.

That's the first thought. And this is how a lot of the small town especially in small towns how they thought because this was around the time the west memphis three stuff happened this is all the same time period where in a small town something happened to teenagers that was a little weird they'd go satanic group it's got to be a cult probably it happened once it's got to happen every time now every time yeah and and i would assume too in california they'd probably be after the whole Manson family and everything. They're probably a little touchier to shit like that. You get the Zodiac killer, the Manson family and fucking all these people. So they said there was a concern about this. People started freaking out. report based on the autopsy the victims were attacked in a police in a blitz type fashion and probably didn't know they were in danger until it was too late wow because there's no defense wounds there's no there's nothing like that that would show they were in a fight they were just

they got bum rushed and also i think in the back of the head is where they got cracked oh fuck so they said fbi agents who reviewed the crime scene photos noticed a conspicuous absence of any defensive type wounds on the victim that's why they also they thought maybe it was a cult situation where they would you know bind them or something yeah they said the manner in which the girl's bodies were concealed seemed to indicate that the killer knew the local terrain he knew to go to the spot there where people dump garbage and dump it because no one, you know, is going to say they were there

because they're either there to party or illegally dump garbage. So it's that sort of thing. They said that the evidence indicated that the murders were probably an act of spontaneity and the crime had not been well prepared. They said no graves have been dug

and the battery-type mechanism of fatal injury indicated an unsophisticated attack okay yeah it's true yeah if you're going to murder someone and said what's the most efficient way blows to the skull with an axe are not it you know what i mean they're not it's a gun a knife you have a plan yeah this isn't somebody who's killed 20 people probably unless that's unless that's like their favorite thing. What he's into. Yeah.

That's what they said. The fact that no graves are dug and all that just seems like somebody who probably hasn't done this a lot. So the school, the pregnant girl school that she goes to, the superintendent said it's a horrible tragedy. We've had the kids get in accidents and all sorts of things, but we've never had murder before. It's horrible, horrible, horrible. Okay. Okay. It has visited us. Man. So Douglas Campbell, Chrissy's dad here, he said that it's quote, it is totally absurd what happened.

It's a weird way to describe it. Absurd? Absurd's kind of amusing, almost. Yeah, it's a punchline. Yeah, it's a joke. It's a word that, it fits comedy more than tragedy. Well, it's something that, yeah, something

that's absurd is so strange that it comes around the corner and becomes kind of funny you know what i mean this isn't really at all doug no this is just horrible the other guy had a horrible horrible horrible i think that's the right that's the right quote the guy said there so he said that douglas campbell he said my daughter's a reserved young woman she's never even been to a party which i don't think he knows everything his daughter's doing too that's the other thing as a lot of my knowledge yeah there's a lot of people did in the 90s much harder to keep track of a teenager yeah you can't call them every five

minutes you can't go share your location right now you can't do any of that shit it's just they said they'll call at eight i don't know hopefully they call that's all you could do they said when they're done they'll Yeah. I guess they're not done? It's so fucking weird. He said he's very worried now for the 14-year-old, Shannon, the one that we read the blog entry from. Yeah. He said that he's going to watch every step she takes now. He won't let her out of his sight.

Oh, that poor thing's life. Oh, Jesus. He said, in a way, I feel sorry for her. Frankly, I'm not going to lose another one so she is in the house for the remainder yeah he's in the back seat everywhere she goes so i feel bad she's not going to have any fun but she's not dying on my watch sorry she's making it to 18 and she can do it on her own no shit so the next day and that day the evening news is on television news and the local news and it is a huge story obviously i mean a small area like this um they were they and they were informed of the victims names and people the phone lines lit up

with tips yeah people call in like crazy and this is one of those things that people, even if they have no information, they want to be helpful. So they think maybe this will be helpful and they end up clogging shit with unnecessary information that isn't helpful. But they're trying to be helpful. They said that they had nine investigators from local and state agencies that were just on the phones as much as they could be. Nine people just taking calls. Holy shit. They put a call center together, basically, for this. So they said they didn't know how long it would take

to figure this out, but the cops said that they didn't know how many dozens of interviews had to be completed with phone tip people. He said he would be surprised if the person or people who fatally beat their young women were strangers to the county. He said,

this doesn't occur up here. Like it doesn't Sacramento. Doesn't it? Doesn't it? Um, he says he didn't remember another double, double homicide in his whole 20 years on the force. This is the only one.

Yeah. That, that filthy fucking heathen pit Sacramento. Man. Dystopia of hedonism. If've been to sacramento and we have to perform and we'll be there in a couple days it is like it's just a boring city it says no offense it's fine it's just fucking boring all right the original night stalker was caught there and he was able to blend in because he was just a boring fuck at the end he was like where can i go where

nothing happens and i can play? Sacramento. I'll go be boring somewhere. Yeah. It feels like a giant business complex or something. It's a weird town. It's strange. Interesting. It's a strange place.

So the cop said, the community is very concerned as a result of the two deaths. The patrol officers are saying people are telling them, we moved up here because we didn't think things like this happened here well and that's both girls ended up here because one money magazine said it was a nice safe place and the other guy moved here to be safer right exactly and to have a slower pace of life and everything so the uh they talk about uh a possible witness here. There's a woman named Connie Haskins who is the day manager at Mr. Pockets Billiards in downtown Grass Valley. Oh, boy. Oh, yeah. What's that place like? I think it's where a lot of kids hang out.

Yeah. At night, it's just all children. Arcade games and shit. Yeah. It's all kids. Arcade games and shit. Yeah. It's all kids.

She says she remembers Dawn Donaldson coming in at one point accompanied by a young man around the time she was reported missing. Okay. She said that Donaldson offered her high school security ID, her ID card, to hold the security collateral for the pool balls and the table. She said, the reason I remember it is because I spelled her name Don, not Dawn. Oh, D-O-N? That's why I work at a fucking Mr. Pockets and I'm an adult because I hear Don and I go,

D-O-N, here you go, fucking idiot. She said, I got her talking about her school. She said, this is what she said. She said she said quote right now my life's a mess that's what dawn had said to her about school yeah she seemed real nice just a regular kid it wasn't that long ago so there you go don jesus fucking christ well the last name starts d-o-n right it? It's Donaldson. Yeah, yeah. Dawn Donaldson. She thought it was Don Donaldson. Dip shit.

Dip, dip shit over there. So who the hell did this? They're really wondering who did it. Like I said, they just think it's a local, so then it scares the shit out of everybody even more. Well, it's got to be a local because no drifter comes into town and knows where they dump trash. Nobody knows that. Nobody knows. You've got to live there a couple of years before you go, oh, that's where I can throw an old refrigerator.

Okay, now I know. That's where the old toilet goes. Exactly. Yep. So the September of 1994 comes around. Almost two months go by with nothing. They have nothing on this at all. They're doing terrific. They're just doing great so they go back to sam strange to talk

to him since again he's the last person that we know of that really definitely saw them um at this time for the last couple months he's been working as a dishwasher and a waiter for six dollars an hour yeah uh at the hilltop estates retirement community yikes that's man getting badgered and getting no tips that is torture every day by probably an elderly woman that just wants cock fucking with him the hard part about that is if you deliver 20 meals that means you delivered 60 meals because you had to take it back three fucking times because it wasn't cooked enough it was cooked too much fucking complain about it there's no bread pudding on this oh my god it was a mess so they found a black plastic trash bag a black trash stick flash bag very slow to make sure your time that's right this was recovered from the crime scene that they had.

Once they processed it, they found blood specks on it. Okay. It was found near the bodies at the crime scene, as well as some fingerprints. Now, one of the bags contained, quote, a large amount of blood in the bag. Okay. Found near the bodies, and that's the bag. Okay. Found near the bodies. And that's the bag they found a fingerprint on. Yeah.

Now the fingerprint is Sam strangers. Oh, that's not good. Nope. That isn't good at all. Whose blood is in it? That's they believe it's the girls. Okay.

Blood in there. Cause that's, they think the bag was used to transport them there. Right. Taken there in a bag and then just dumped out. And that's, that's yeah. Uh, but if there's like raccoon blood in it then we yeah yeah then it could be parts of somebody else where sam dumps his shit yeah that's where sam dumps his raccoon blood his raccoon corpses he's a he's an amateur taxidermist and he dumps

his he dumps his failures out there. The ones that look cartoonish. Yeah, he's like, I tried to make a jackal open. That shit didn't work at all. I ruined three animals trying to do that shit. I have to just throw them out. I wonder if I put moose horns. It didn't look right. Too heavy.

Too heavy. It fell right down. How would that rabbit carry those? Come on. Come on, now. Imagine hopping with moose horns now. That's just silly. They also found carpet fibers, vegetation, leaves and things of that nature, and animal hairs on the bodies that were, and this is the problem here,

were similar to and consistent with, there's no actual scientific certainty here, with samples taken later at Sam Strange's home. So fingerprint and similar characteristics to multiple things. The fingerprint's more important, but yeah, I get it. That's big. So they have fingerprint and that on one hand. On the other hand, they have cooperative pastel eye detector tests.

So they're like, they're very confused here. So a search of his property now, because they're going to go search him here, leads to traces of blood being found in his car and below his porch. Uh-oh, in that truck? In the truck, yeah. So this blood, again, they're going to connect to Dawn and Chrissy here. Uh-oh. In that truck? In the truck, yeah. So this blood, again,

they're going to connect to Don and Chrissy here. Uh-oh. The blood in his truck and the blood beneath his porch. Uh-oh. That's not great. Now, these bags, according to the Department of Justice criminalist

Faye Ann Springer, were found to contain flakes that appeared to be dried blood. And in one of the bags, a hair was recovered that was found to be similar blood and in one of the bags a hair was recovered that was found to be similar to the hair of christina campbell that was 1994 so much there was dna but you needed like a lot of it like a hair had to be totally intact with the root for it to be any good

and a lot of time it takes a lot it took forever and blood they needed a lot of blood like to run something they would destroy a whole sample to do it. Whereas now they need a tiny minuscule amount that they can test. There were cases that they held based on the examiner telling them, if we wait a while, there's better technology happening. If we use this now, it's going to destroy it and we don't know if we'll get anything out of it. Absolutely. There's people who wait for years for that kind of shit. know if we'll get anything out of it absolutely there's people wait for years for that kind of shit now blood spatters in sam's pickup truck and on his toolbox oh and an oak leaf linked to

linked to his house is the same vegetation from his house was found out there uh as well as plant material found on the girl's bodies as well okay so now all of this they also found unidentified they couldn't get anything out of it maybe maybe it was washed or something, unidentified blood stains on Sam's denim jacket as well. Okay. And then they found some on the soil near his house as well. Okay. That's a lot of blood. It's more samples than I'd like on my property, yeah.

One part of blood, maybe you can explain your way out of that, but there's fucking blood everywhere. Yeah, blood on me, blood on the truck, blood on the soil. Blood under my patio? Under the patio. Oh, no. Like it leaked beneath the panels. Oh, no.

That is bad. Under there? Yeah. Those girls hanging out under my patio, I told them not to hang out under there. Like, what else would you say at that point? Yeah. Then it gets worse.

Oh? Then they search everywhere on the property property including a pond that's on the front because there's acreage it takes them a long time to search all these acres damn it they find a pond out of the pond they pull an axe out of it and so they believe this is a weapon that would fit the exact specifications of what would have caused this damage to the head. You can't tell, but this is what the medical examiner said. I believe this type of instrument would have caused it. Then they found the axe after that. In the fucking pond.

There's no explanation for that. Nope. It was a large wood-handled axe, sharp on one side, blunt on the other. And divers found it in a pond toward the rear of the property. So it was way fucking far away way back there but there's nothing on the axe to physically connect it to the killings there's no blood there's no hairs yeah there's nothing in there so they have an axe that is consistent but i guarantee you everybody that lives out there has an axe just like that i have

three axes just like that how many do you have you know what i mean know what I mean? One. You don't live in the woods. I don't know if you have as many axes as me. I just got the one. Yeah, I got a few axes, and they're all like that. None of them are in a pond anywhere near my house. It's not one of those fucking three-foot-long ones you probably have. I got a bunch. I got small ones, big ones.

We got hatchets. I got all sorts of shit over here. Mine would be probably considered more of a hatchet. It's only maybe 18 inches at best i've split logs yeah it's it's an actual you got one of those yeah fall big one axes yeah fucking hurt man it hurts your shoulders bad you know if you're not used to cutting wood yeah that's a that's a fascinating weapon because not only does it do damage on that end but on the other end it's doing damage it's doing damage yeah on a 43 to 45 year old man it's doing damage. It's doing damage. Yeah. On a 43 to 45-year-old man, it's doing damage on the shoulder.

It's going to hurt. Yeah. He's going to be hot. He's 21, though. He could swing that thing for days. Oh, he could throw it. Yeah. He's great.

Yeah. He's having a ball with that shit. So they found that nothing to connect him. But based on finding a consistent murder weapon and the blood and the spatters and the leaves, they decide to arrest him. Really? They arrest him at his home, which seems like they'd want to find something else to arrest him for and hold him for a while and build this up. That feels like they got pressure for it being months old and they got nothing.

Oh, they definitely do. They have a lot of, this is a small town. This isn't like a big city where there's been 10 other murders since then and people have forgotten. They're like, what? Have they caught who the fuck got those girls get yeah this is just keeping their kids 16 year olds yeah yeah there's been teenagers going please catch this person so i can leave the house because my parents won't let me so it's like i've been in oregon with an old lady for the last six months jesus christ Jesus Christ. Might as well be in Oregon with old people. So they arrest him at his home, and he's booked on two charges of homicide, obviously.

And, yeah, so a cop said, quote, in a case like this, a lot of different people could be questionable. But he was a strong suspect because nobody else saw the girls after they left his place. That is thin still strong. I don't know what it is. He denies it. He says, I didn't have anything to do with it. And he passed a test.

That's what I mean. He was interviewed several times. He always did it. Um, he said that, uh, the problem is though, he just said, yeah,

they're here for 20, 30 minutes. That was that. But then after a few more interviews, he starts saying, but OK, there was this. OK, there was that. Because they said, where else did you hang out with them? You were seen with them recently. And he said, yes, the day before this, we went to another house where I got some marijuana.

He said that he had taken the girls to this house to pick weed up with him the day before. And so they were planning on smoking weed that night because he got some that day, the day before. So according to records, Sam telephoned a friend that day as well here. And the friend corroborated and actually said this. And they confronted Sam with it and he said yeah okay i did that because his friend told him he did it he telephoned his friend that day boasting that he could have sex with the girls if he wanted to i could bang both these girls if i

want to he said but you should come over and get one because these girls are you know they want to hang out and party and maybe we could fuck them yeah you know you would do that if you're 16 if you're 21 that's just disgusting weird yeah you know what you do go to hang out and party and maybe we can fuck them. You know, you would do that if you're 16. If you're 21, that's just disgusting. That's weird. You know what you do? Go to a bar and pick up an adult woman and fuck her. Yeah, go buy drinks for somebody like the rest of us. That's creepy.

You'd rather have teenagers over to give them weed and give them booze because he can buy beer. It's not even fair. That's fish in a barrel. Go somewhere where there's other adults that can buy drinks for people and see if anybody fucks you. Don't compete, motherfucker. Yeah, compete. Get out there. Jesus, this is America, goddammit.

Compete. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, he did that. His friend said, no, no thanks. I'm not into it. I don't want to. Which, he's probably an adult that said, I don't want to fuck 16-year-old girls. That's okay.

Yeah, that seems weird to me. Thanks. That sounds illegal. No thanks. I'm not trying to go to jail for this. Jesus Christ. So they said that the defense has been able to put forth some evidence that is right away. They start finding some stuff here that his lawyer finds.

One is a backpack described as the one Donaldson was carrying when she entered the strange residence that night. So her friend said she was wearing this backpack when he dropped her off at Sam's house. Watch her walk into Sam's house with this backpack on. This backpack turned up in the Donaldson home. What the fuck? Meaning that says. They got back home. That they came back home and went back out again. That would say that.

So that's very interesting. That turned up later in the home. They found it when they were saying she was, they were saying there's, we never found the backpack she had and blah, blah, blah. And that would help together.

And then the parents said, we found the fucking backpack. It was in a room. So also a motorist driver says at a preliminary hearing that they saw two – these two girls, just as they're described, hitchhiking on Highway 20 the morning after the guy said he dropped them off at Sam's house. Like early in the morning. They were hitchhiking after that. Okay. Like early in the morning.

They were hitchhiking after that. So that's not – and the girls are – you'll see pictures of them on social media. They're in a small town. They're distinctive looking. She's the Mexican girl and this one is – you can tell her. So it's that deal. So that's two really interesting factors here. Yeah, that's not good.

It says they might have gone home, dropped some shit off, and then went back out again to hitchhike. Yeah, police need to do much better work than this. Yeah, this is bad. So Campbell's dad, Douglas, here, this guy's really fair, man. The people here in this case, both families, they're incredibly thoughtful and smart people people they seem like to me so douglas the father said we're happy to see someone at least as a suspect but at this point it's too early to make any judgments one way or another yeah he said he also has parents who have feelings just as we have just as we have as parents great point yeah, yeah. So he said, yeah. Let's have some consideration for other people.

Yeah, and he said, I don't know if this kid did it or not. They have him as a suspect, but before we say hang him in the public square, I'm going to think about his parents are worried now. You know what I mean? So it makes sense, man. Linda Donaldson, Dawn's mom, said that Sam had known her daughter for years and that Dawn had begun hanging around with Sam a couple weeks prior to her death.

He was at Dawn's memorial service. He showed up there, which you got to have some big fucking balls. That's some mob shit to kill somebody then show up at their memorial service. You either are married to them and you want to get away with it or you're like in the mafia.

Or you either didn't do it or you super fucking did it. Or you're cold and cold as fucking ice yeah super did it yeah he her linda said quote i remember he came up to me after the service and squeezed my hand he said he was so sorry it's still hard to imagine him doing it he to go not just to stop by to go there mingle right see the bodies and then go to the mother and i'm so you got to be a cold i mean literally a mob boss does that that's fucking cold or a serial killer one or the other that is cold yeah whew um linda said that she was surprised when investigators told her that Sam had been arrested. She said, quote, the investigators really didn't tell me much.

I understand. I didn't want to hurt the investigation. But she'd like to know why they arrested a family friend. Right. What's the evidence that you've got that does this? Right. She said she hopes there'll be answers. She said, I want this to come to an end.

I want to know what happened and why. I need to know come to an end. I want to know what happened and why I need to know as anybody would. Murray, the stepfather, he reacted with anger. He's a steer wrestler. So yeah, you know, they don't take no guff. They don't take no guff. I mean, imagine if he can wrestle a steer to the ground. This is not a man you want to trifle with. This kid has no fucking chance. Murray will fuck you up. Yeah. And and murray said quote we knew this young fellow he was a friend he's been an acquaintance of this family for years i'm very angry right now i realize it doesn't solve anything we need to learn from this and protect our children we have to listen

to what our kids are saying well the kids weren't saying anything that was the problem they were just trying to they were trying to rebel and have his independence out there but imagine the next year he wrestled i feel bad for that thing oh ferdinand you're in trouble he twisted its head off and spiked it on the ground and it was an accident he didn't even do it to like gloat he just popped one off he was twisted and it just spun off the calves by the courses the course the cow's body the cow's body fell to the ground and he held it above his head and just spun off the cow's body. The cow's body fell to the ground. And he held it above his head by the horns like a trophy. And put it on. Yeah, while blood dripped upon him.

I will bathe in thee. Hook them horns. That's right. Now, Bill Schultz is the Nevada County supervisor. His 21-year-old daughter was murdered four years earlier in San Diego. Oh. So he said that he feels good about the arrest. He said, at first, I wasn't comfortable with the fact that the arrest came so slow.

But when my daughter was murdered in San Diego, it was the same way. These officers do it methodically, and they do a good job. You've got to get evidence first. If you arrest somebody and then you don't have evidence and you have to let them go, it looks terrible. Something tells me that case in San Diego was a little more evidence. Yeah, a few more, too. A few more people getting murdered down there.

So now Schultz said that on several occasions, he gave a ride to Dawn. He's given rides to Dawn. He said the most recent encounter was about a year ago on a rural road. He said, I told her, my God, Dawn, you've got to stay off this road. You can't be hitchhiking on the fucking road in the middle of nowhere. You're going to get murdered. And she told him that her friend's car ran out of gas and she couldn't get home.

Typical teenage things, he said. So, wow. So he's like, I've seen her hitch. So she does hitchhike. That's the other thing. That's her thing, yeah. She's been known to hitchhike and been seen hitchhiking. The county supervisor, David Tobiasen, said he hopes everybody can relax now after this arrest.

That's the other thing. I think this arrest was made. We got to arrest somebody because people are freaking out. Yeah. So we have to. He said, this is a quiet rural community and we're misled into thinking

these things can't happen here. Most certainly they can. It's a sheltered area as far as crime and it's upsetting to see this happen to two young ladies. We were in shock.

Yeah. Now, can Sam afford a lawyer do you think? Uh, no. He's 21. he's a 21 year old who makes six dollars an hour right serving complaining old people their dinners oh god jesus and then washing up afterwards washing their dishes too he lacks the resources to hire expert witnesses to do his own physical tests on the physical evidence he says he does not have the funds it will take

to pay a lawyer through a lengthy murder trial either. And so, you know, this is a lot here. Now, the prosecutor, the prosecutor, the prosecutor starts out saying he's going to seek the death penalty, but then backs off of it. Really? Yes. And so no, no death penalty, he says.

He's not seeking the death penalty. I think because you have a better chance to convict if the death penalty is not in there because this evidence is weak. Yeah, this is bad. It's bad. And people, even if they're not sure, they'd much rather send someone to prison on 90% evidence, 90% sure, than death row. percent evidence that 90 sure than death row yeah death row you need like as people five people watch this guy cutting her head off or has to be a serial killer that's the only way you'll get a lot of people who are just reasonable people to say i want to kill someone can get killed because i said so it takes a lot to push normal people into that it's got to be a very personal

and the the victim's got to be a very vulnerable and like yeah ugly situation it's yeah and if you're capable of still doing that then yeah we don't need you we don't need it so the town is actually divided as fuck over this wow people are on sam's side or the girl's side it's one or the other i mean it's one of those um they said that some people took a look at the circumstantial evidence and said he's definitely guilty and some people said this is bullshit they're just using this kid as a scapegoat he didn't do anything he passed a polygraph and i and i'm i'm a fan of getting it right as the next guy but like if you if you fuck this up and convict this guy and then there's somebody worse that does even worse shit

that's the problem now that's a really bad thing yeah if you do have a cult or a hitchhiker murder you got bigger fucking problems fuck yeah you do much bigger than this asshole so he's been without counsel because he had a court-appointed attorney named scott fielder who'll come back later on he withdrew from the case telling the judge he couldn't adequately represent his client at the going county rate of $50 an hour. Because that's not just for him. That's for researchers. And there's a lot of people working under that for $50 an hour. It's much less than a lawyer would charge for a murder trial.

I mean, it's just way less. Much less than a lawyer would charge for a murder trial. I mean, it's just way less. So they said that there was a court session attended only by Sam and his parents. He had no lawyer. So, yeah, they said that the Nevada County opened bidding on the defense counsel seat. So they basically said, anybody out there, is there a lawyer in the house that will do this for 50 bucks an hour? Which is not what you want in your murder trial as a defense attorney here. So they're trying to find that at least five attorneys, including two men who counseled him through municipal court proceedings, submitted proposals for the jobs.

They have five people putting them in. I'm sure they're people who are just in demand and great, brilliant attorneys. So the judge said he's been studying what he called the novel nature of some of the proposals. Some of them are like proposing maybe money later or like different deferment plans. I'll take a hog. Yeah, they're trying to. Yeah, basically a nice pig like in Doc Hollywood.

Something. We'll do that because otherwise they said like they're all trying to get around the fact that they are only charging or only paying $50 an hour. Jesus Christ. So pre-trial hearings begin on the admissibility of human and plant DNA collected during the investigation. A court hearing here, the prosecutor, this is the prosecutor saying this, mind you. He says that this was, quote, a classic

case of circumstantial evidence held together by two threads. That sounds like something the defense would say, right? Yeah, don't tell me how weak your shit is. Threads! Kept together by threads means that it's about to explode because it's

not tenable. Yeah, that's what that means. Weird. He says botanical evidence connecting the victims to the residents and two plastic bags bearing his fingerprints found near the bodies. The prosecutor said the inference being that those bags were used literally as body bags

to transport the girls from where they were killed to where they were found now they're waiting for the dna to come in they don't have dna they can't have a trial until the dna comes right not only was dna slow anyway back then but it's even slower when the oj simpson trial is completely blocking up the labs of every state fucking laboratory that does this yep the oj trial backlogs the entire state of california's scientific things because they were doing everything and that was the most important thing possibly in the world back then for them so they said that it's delayed months because of O.J. Simpson. Two criminalists from the State Department of Justice's DNA lab testified before a judge

that the demands of the ongoing Simpson trial forced them to relegate the Nevada County case to a back burner. Wow. Two dead teenagers. Back burner. It's horrible that fucking, that Nicole and Ron, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were killed.

That's terrible. But they're also adults. Yeah. And it's a domestic situation. It doesn't seem to be something that's causing any grief anywhere else. I doubt OJ is going to be on the street murdering people is what I'm getting at. Other than them. Whereas whoever killed these two. Who the fuck knows what they're capable if they're out there they are

going to kill a lot more young vulnerable girls like that's that's horrible that's so i was no way on this i don't care who's famous fuck that but whatever um the criminalist mernay montgomery characterized the strange meaning sam strange not the odd dna evidence as complex but said she had completed all the pcr testing and on day this week presented prosecutor with the results and that's the pcr is the chain reaction shit the polymerase chain reaction it's relatively new type of dna testing at the time, too. Now it's old bullshit. Not bullshit, but it's, you know, they have better ways now. Obsolete as fuck. Yep. The prosecutor

said he couldn't comment on the test results, but court documents and testimony revealed the preliminary reports submitted that it matched one of the victim's blood on two, they matched one of the victim's blood to two items found in his pickup. Uh-oh. How do you explain that?

That's a tough one. Blood in your truck, man? Blood in your pickup truck in the bed. The judge heard testimony of that person, Montgomery, and the Department of Justice lab director and took into submission the defense motion for the suppression of dna results which i don't know why you would what reason could you give yeah we don't need evidence in this trial let's do it the old-fashioned way thinking evidence let's do this the old-fashioned way damn and all this newfangled technology is ruining everything i like he said she said feels good yeah yeah they said the oj time the there's only four caseworkers in the lab

that do all this shit and they said that the backlog grew from 73 cases in october 94 to 100 cases by early 95 they're 100 cases back because of oj unbelievable um that is fucking amazing so they said that they were given the case work in december 94 but didn't actually begin examining the evidence till june 95 hundreds of lives holding the balance holy shit so sam's mom let's talk about her because she is a character tell me why kathy Strange is her name. She's a policeman's daughter. Which I always found this.

Officer Strange? Officer Strange. Officer going to get me some strange. Boy, oh boy. Now, she's a policeman's daughter, and I always find that, this is going to sound shitty, but but i'm gonna give a fuck female relatives of police officers are the pushiest fucking people if they get pulled over they're like i have all that i know a guy was telling me his wife does this because she knows all these cops she'll whip

out like all the different cards and be like just pick one of these already hurry up because i'm not fucking getting a ticket from you. That's how they are. It's fucking amazing. Get a free card. Yeah, I just picture that. Yeah, just me. Her name is Kat Strange. That's like two slang terms for pussy. Yeah, Kat and Strange.

That's fun. That is fun. Well, she runs a personal awareness consulting consulting business which i don't know what that is they say it's successful yeah it's like a life coach no worst it's knowing your surroundings kind of personal awareness that shit like for safety for like keep your head on a swivel recognize threats shit like that's what i think it is defense stuff except not teaching you to fight just right don't don't know how to fight just put yourself in good situations and then go to another class to learn how to fight back in case you're in a bad one there you go but give me money too

jesus she said she'd been running this business out of her home it was very successful but as a result of the murder she's's lost all her clients. I wonder why. Because it's at her house, that house where they say that two girls were murdered. And a boy that did... Also, that's the other thing. If she knows how to keep you safe, he knows how to keep you not safe

based on her fucking things. And they also confiscated all sorts of shit in the house. They confiscated her confidential client records there as well. So she doesn't even have all their info here. She doesn't even know who her students are. No, more on Kathy to follow. Don't worry.

So the trial starts out, okay? Yeah. Here we go. Opening statements, come on. And this will be a real interesting trial. The prosecutor, this is how they start it. Screams in the night. A bloodied oak leaf and fingerprints on a matched pair of trash bags prove that Samuel A. Strange bludgeoned to death two Grass Valley girls.

Jesus. That's right. Screams in the night. Screams in the night. Bloodied oak leaves. He's really trying to set a scene here. Sure is. He compared, he talked to him as a guy next door type.

And in his opening, he said that Strange's guy next door qualities remind him a lot of Ted Bundy. So he threw the Ted Bundy stank on him in opening statements. See him? Ted Bundy. That is brutal. He said, warn the jury bites nipples off and shit like that cut a head off fuck it come back a week later and fuck it again oh that is gross he said he warned the jury not to judge a book by its cover lately seems fine but he's not

so the defense in a in their opening, showed two photographs, put two photographs up of two men that we haven't talked about at all, two men's photographs, and said, quote, these are the faces of the two men who murdered Don Donaldson and Christina Campbell. Two? Two guys, specific ones with fucking pictures. Where the fuck do they come from? He said that Strange is falsely accused of these killings and that at the close of this trial, I will ask you to send a message to these men that their day of judgment is coming. The people in the photos. Meaning Sam didn't do it. He then names the two men, which we'll get into who they are, and said that each, neither of them has an alibi. Neither has an alibi. Neither has an alibi.

They both lied to police and showed signs of consciousness of guilt. One had expressed a sexual interest in one of the victims and the other had threatened to kill her. And that actually did happen. What the fuck? Opening statement.

By the way, Scott Fielder's back on the case. They must have upped his price, but he's back. Either that or he went, this is getting pretty high profile. I better get in there. I'll take 40 an hour. Yep, he's the one displaying these pictures. He said, these are the faces of the two men who murdered the girls.

The district attorney said he's known for some time that the defense posture would be, quote, some other dude did it. But he said he's still waiting to hear the evidence to support either one of these guys being suspects. Is that the only place on earth that you can do that? Just like accuse somebody? Yeah, open court.

A defense attorney can do anything. They can say anything they want. The president killed his wife, not him. You can do anything. They can say anything they want. The president killed his wife, not him. You can say anything. It's not slanderous. You can just do whatever you want in open court to defend yourself. He's standing there in court just going, Can you believe this?

Anything. Tom Brady did it. Just pick a person. And Tom's sitting in court going, What the fuck, man? Yeah. Skip the film, man. I'm trying to find another model to marry.

So the prosecutor said, I was more intrigued by what they did not say, talking about the defense attorney, suggesting that the prosecution's major pieces of physical evidence were not really refuted in the opening statements here. Let's take a mid-trial crazy break for a second, shall we, before we get into this? How so? Well, Kathy Strange, remember her? She did some strange shit here. Yeah, Cat Snatch did some strange shit. She, during her son's trial, she went to a family therapist.

Oh. Okay. This family therapist then called warnings in to the judge, the prosecutor, and two sheriff's investigators who'd been working on the case. What's Kathy planning? Well, they said he told them that if the jury returned a guilty verdict, Kathy Strange, quote, wanted to reserve the right to take out. That was the term she used, the guy said, to take out those people responsible for putting her son in prison. So she said, they find my kid guilty. I'm killing all these motherfuckers.

Kat Minj, what the fuck? Wow. So he said, the prosecutor said that he carried a revolver for a year. Really? Because he was afraid of this lady, didn't know how crazy she was. And that the judge installed a metal detector outside his courtroom right after that. Is that right? Yep, because of her.

But Kathy says she denied that she said she would take anyone out. She said the therapist overreacted when she told him the conviction would be quote, crossing my line. And she said, quote, they did cross my line and I'll be retaliating right now. She retaliates by starting

with somebody else a giant recall campaign for the sheriff, the judge, the prosecutor, for everybody involved in everything. Recall campaign for the sheriff, the judge, the prosecutor, for everybody involved in everything. Recall campaign. Yeah. Back to the trial now. Okay.

Who are these two guys he's talking about? Well. Love to know. They are Damian Scott Graham, another 21-year-old. And Alan Pettis, another 21-year-old. Okay. That he knew and hung out with, Sam. Sam claimed that Alan Pettis killed Dawn, after which both Dawn and Damien killed Chrissy.

And he said he saw the Chrissy killing, but he didn't see the other one. He didn't see Dawn getting murdered. He says that he helped clean up the crime scene and disposed of the bodies to protect these two guys. But he didn't kill anybody. Okay. According to Sam, he didn't go to the police because they said, oh, why wouldn't you go to the police?

These two guys just killed these two girls. He said he was too scared of the retaliation from them and their friends and family. Yeah. You know, they will murder you with an ax. Investig investigators said there was no evidence that pointed to either of their involvement in the murder besides their inconsistent stories and and threats apparently now they bring damian scott graham up on the stand and he testifies and uh that's detrimental but not the prosecutor doesn't call him the The defense calls him. And they're going to grill him. Put him up there, grill him on the stand.

Who knows? If he looks slightly guilty, that doubt could be enough to get a juror to say not guilty. You know what I mean? Okay. But if he looks really solid, then you look like an idiot at that point. That's the problem. He said he didn't know how they died. Because they asked him, do you know how they died?

And Damien said, I have no fucking idea. And so did Alan. He said, quote, no, I did not. When they were asked if he had anything to do with the homicides, both of them answered all the questions they were asked and, uh, nothing, they didn't come up with anything. They just said, nope, didn't do anything. They said they appeared to be nervous and uncomfortable as you would be when you've been accused of murder in open court. Uh court but they said the defense attorney said which girl died first and he said i don't know fucking beats me fuck what i know then they asked graham quote did the girls have their shoes on when they were murdered there's a thing about not finding their shoes which is interesting and his reply to that was i have no fucking idea.

I don't know anything about this. I don't know. So neither of them could account for their whereabouts on the night of July 23rd. What? And both people, both of these guys gave conflicting and inconsistent statements to investigators. Okay. Okay. So both of them, until the evidence came out, out the physical stuff both of them are more

suspicious than sam to me yeah but you can't tell me where you've been yeah that's not good graham apparently in the detective's notes they found that during an early interview when no details of the killings were commonly known this was right after they found the bodies graham asked the cop if the girl's shoes had been found. Is that real? Did the girl say it? It was in the detective's notes that he asked him about the shoes, and he was like, why the fuck would you ask that?

Yeah. And the defense attorney here says that he wants to argue to the jury that Graham's question betrays a signature fact known only to the killer, but the prosecutor claims that he could have received that information from any number of sources not public sources though yeah i don't care how he knows that the fact around town gossip know it yeah the only way you'd know right yeah there's no official like outlet that this is coming out and so i don't like that at all the fact he knows it is frightening yeah even if you read that in the paper, why would you ask that?

Did they ever find her shoe? I wouldn't fucking ask that. Who cares? Ask me these questions and I can deny and get the hell out of here. I'm not going to start asking questions about shit. That's crazy. So they claim that. Now, in the closing arguments, the prosecutor told the jury that the physical evidence linking Sam to the killings is comparable in strength to the cable that supports the Golden Gate Bridge.

Oh, it's that strong now. Not a thread anymore. It's a fucking cable that you hang steel from. Yeah. And you drive fucking 18 wheelers across it. It's a strand, but it's a strong strand. It's several strands in that one strand. Wow.

They said that, and when you look at all the strands woven together, they do not break apart. The strands of cable, when put together, hold up in this case. Okay. Now, like I said, he had called him Ted Bundy before. He said that Strange must have snapped the night of the killings. That's what happened. He said, we'll never know why. And he said that it's probable that Dawn and Chrissy just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Jesus. He said, whatever happened, it started inside the Strange house. However, the bloodletting was outside. He said it must have started in there, brought them outside, and then beat them to death and left them out there. He had said trace evidence found in the girls' bodies, wisteria leaves, plant stem fragments, pine needles, blades of grass, and animal hairs matched samples from Strange's yard. That's only four and a half miles away, too, though.

So how different is the foliage? Unless he planted all those things that are not common in this area then that's a problem they could have built been killed in somebody else's yard yeah fucking a half a mile away that was the same shit in it too you know that's the problem here so they said the plaque uh the black plastic trash bags one contained a mixture of the two victims blood both bared sam's fingerprints were found at the dump site. That's so bad. They said the victims were

stuffed together into the trash bags, which were consecutive bags off the same roll. He double-bagged them. And they came off the same roll. That's not good. Nope. And loaded into the bed of his pickup truck. They said several smudges were discovered, several smudges of blood discovered in the pickup truck.

And he said that, told the jury, one that turned out to be a mixture of the girl's blood and one that proved to be just Chrissy's blood in the smudges. He said, quote, these girls, after they were killed, were transported in the defendant's pickup truck where they were unceremoniously dumped, covered with big styrofoam panels, and left there literally to rot. Jesus. He said that Strange's claim that two victims left his house immediately after their arrival simply doesn't make sense.

Right. Actually, though, I thought about that, and it doesn't make sense because he said that the guys were there, but that actually would make sense because if he said, we got weed, they came over. I gave them a joint or I gave them a couple of balls worth and then they took off.

You're a teenager. You stopped by a lot of people's houses for 20 minutes back then. You stopped by to grab weed from people all the time. Yeah. That happens all the time. Or a six pack or a 40 or whatever it was. And you can't be a scumbag and just pop in, grab the weed and leave. You feel like a jerk.

You got to hang for 20 minutes. And the guy getting it for you doesn't want you to stick around any longer. They'd rather you be a scumbag, give me my money, and get the fuck off my property. Well, they want you to stay for 20 minutes so the neighbors don't think they're selling drugs. But other than that, there's that. So then he brought out the axe that he found. He said it was fished out of the murky pond on the strange property. Is it important that the pond is

murky? The type of water matter. Yeah. And he said it was the murder weapon. He said the elements washed away the traces of the killing, but the most incriminating thing about this axe is where it was found. It was thrown away in the muck. Now, the defense attorney, in his closing

argument, he attacked the integrity of the prosecutor's office. He's going right. Kathy Strange is right in his ear. I mean, I'm sure. And alleged that two uncharged friends, as we talked about, Alan and Damien, are the evil human beings who actually committed the crimes. And they said Sam is innocent. This is crazy.

He said the real killers ran into the hitchhiking girls after they left Sam's house that night. Then they killed the girls not too far from the residence in an area where the same foliage would be. And that would account for the plant particles. Then they said that these guys came over covered in blood, familiar with Sam and Sam's pickup truck. They borrowed two plastic bags from the open toolbox that was in the rear of the truck, because that's where the bags came from, leaving behind drops of blood that would incriminate Sam,

but it was on them from murdering them. They said that would also account for Sam's prints on the blood-filled bags he recovered from the area. He had touched them earlier when he got another bag. But not both of them. So that's the argument. Now, the verdict comes in here. Deliberations start out.

It's eight women, four men sitting on this jury here. Three days of deliberations happen here. Oh, boy. That's a lot, which there's a lot to go over it really is um they ended up differing in the degree first degree murder i guess they end up uh finding him guilty here yeah of first degree murder for christine's or chrissy's murder and second degree murder for uh dawn okay so they thought that yeah they thought that Dawn was a rage killing and that Chrissy just was killed because she was there and he had to kill her after that. So that would have been the first degree and then the other one was whatever.

Now, he's got a girlfriend, by the way. What? I don't know if he had a girlfriend before or after or during or what. But her name is Casey. And as they announced the guilty, she screamed no and cried uncontrollably. Like one of those mothers on the first 48 who found out their kid is dead in the street and they run out. That's exactly like that. How old is she? His age? Age appropriate?

Or is she 15? Old enough to be in court and not have him get an extra charge tacked on. Old enough to display publicly, I would say. Yeah, old enough for it to still just be murder and not statutory, too. Throw that on there. Right. Now, sentencing comes around, and this case has just started here in reality. Because at this point, Sam says he wants a new trial before sentencing

because his attorneys forced him not to testify oh he wants to talk yeah he said i should i wanted to testify my attorneys told me not to and if i was able to tell my story then they would have explained all this yeah yep he said that quote, they told me we were winning. They told me not to testify. They told me that me taking the stand didn't fit in with the defense they had presented. They told me we were winning. I love that. They told me we were winning.

Now, they would advise him whether he needs to testify or not. That's what a lawyer does. But at the end of the day, it is your fucking decision whether you want to testify or not. I love it. I love it. They said that we were winning. They said we were winning. That's his first thing.

Like, you got to peek at the judges' scorecards on a boxing tournament. Don't fuck it up. Yeah. I'm up four rounds to two. We don't need this shit. But no. I don't need to testify. I can just rope a dope and get out of here.

Yeah. I don't need to testify. I can just rope a dope and get out of here. Yeah. So, like I said, whether they advise you to or not, if they're not letting you, you can say, hey, judge, I would like to testify and my lawyers aren't letting me. And the judge will fix it for you. You're allowed to. It's your right. They'll let you testify and they'll probably kick your fucking lawyer off the case. So he has a motion for a new trial. The judge here says that the lawyers now are going to be called to testify about it.

They have to have a whole hearing over this now. Oh, boy. So they said, did his lawyers mislead him into remaining mute, depriving him of effective assistance of counsel? Yeah. If they said we're winning, that's not great. A great job. Don't worry. We're winning, that's not a great job. Don't worry, we're winning.

But the prosecutor says he changed his strategy when the trial didn't turn out to his advantage. That's what he did. And Strange, though, said if I had to do it all over again, believe me, I would be standing up screaming. He said, I want to testify. Now, they let him in this hearing. He has to testify about wanting to testify and he does. He insisted he gets up there and he says, yes, I remember that night. He said, my only role was an aider and a better and a cleaner up of the mess.

That's all I did. They said, did you ever think of calling the police? And he said, I never thought of calling the police. Not once. I just didn't want to die. Okay. Yeah. Those guys were going to murder him next. He said he stuck to his lie and, quote, promised myself I would never come forward because the real killers are two friends and had threatened the lives of not only me, but my mother, my father, and my 12-year-old brother as well.

I'll kill your whole family. Yeah. So his father, Guy Strange. Wow. Guy Strange and Cat Strange. Strange guy. Strange guy. Strange come a guy.

He also testified saying that Sam moved closer to and became more protective of his family when information about the girls began to come forward. Like it seemed like he was worried about something. Yeah. Like, you know, being murdered by two real murderers or, you know, getting caught for murder would be the other thing why he was acting weird, probably. Yeah, both are a good reason to act weird, and neither is evidence for either side. Fucking not at all so according to guy strange sam had been somewhat distant from the family and began calling to see what everyone was doing and especially where his brother was and what he was doing after the murders he kept saying where's where's why is he there where's he going he said

that was weird that he was doing that so guy said that when the whole thing was going on and they were focusing on the property and searching, that Sam broke down in tears and said, Dad, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. Because his dad said, why are they here? Did you do this? Did you do something? And he said after hearing from his son what had happened the night of the murders and the killer's threats,

he said that Guy Strange armed himself and installed a security system in the home and moved his young son to a private school as well. Oh, locked it up. So now he's got the whole story. Now he's this new story of exactly what happened. And now he's got more details as well. Okay. He says,

now I'm going to admit exactly what happened. The prosecutor says they don't find it credible, says it doesn't make any sense here. Um, he said, no strange says that, um, he says, They don't find it credible, says it doesn't make any sense here. They said no. Strange says that he says this is what his motion says, quote, Sam Strange wanted to admit the lies that he had told in the first seven weeks of the investigation and tell the jury what actually happened the night of the killings. But according to a statement of facts offered to the court, the attorney, his attorney told him that he was going to be acquitted and that the only way they could lose the case is if he testified.

You're the only way you could lose this for us. He said we're winning. Yep. Sam claims he was, quote, never informed that the decision to testify was ultimately his and not his lawyer's. He said he didn't know it was his decision. Wow. His lawyer said that he couldn't ethically respond to the

investigation. He said that particular issue will need to be dealt with by a court. But he does say that he believes that Strange does deserve a new trial, even if it's not for that. He deserves a new trial and I hope he gets one. So his new attorney here said that Strange

indicates now, Sam says he felt like a zombie for weeks after bagging and disposing of the bodies of dawn and chrissy he said he didn't kill the girls but he was there when you know they were bludgeoned and hacked to death that's not good that sounds really bad uh according to his description of the killings outlined in his motion two victims were dropped off at his home on July 23rd, 1994. Now, this is the real, real story he's saying. This is like the for real story.

This is not good. He said, and they had been joined there just before midnight by two of his friends who had meth and beer. That's Damien and Al. They came over methed up with extra meth and beer. If you're at like a hanging out with two girls smoking weed party, you turn the lights off and pretend you're not home when those guys come over, right? I'm going to hook up with one of these chicks and get stoned. I don't need you here.

Two methies showed up to a party of a man that's 21. His party consists of two 16-year-old girls. Two 16-year-old girls. Now there's three 21-year-old girls. Two 16-year-old girls. Now there's three 21-year-olds. That's horrible. Hey, guys, it's only midnight. Let's all go to the bar.

Girls, we'll drop you off on the way. Good night. We'll send you to your parents. Yeah. We're going to go find girls who have a fucking experience, basically. You can really throw one at me. We're going to have girls that have jobs and grudges to fuck out right now. a grudge out against their father you haven't had enough time to build up yet so later on in the evening uh strange said he was with chrissy in a room next to the garage of the residence when one of the friends knocked on the door and told and got strange to come with them and said that they had accidentally broken something.

When he followed strange, followed his guest outside. He saw his friend standing quote, just beyond the prone figure of Dawn Donaldson. And the guy told him she's dead. So Sam said he approached Dawn's body, though, and gave her a tap with his shoe and told her to stop fucking around. He gave her like a nudge and go, stop fucking around. What are you doing?

Don't fucking pretend you're dead here. Oh, boy. Yeah. He said, though, the realization that she was actually dead sent him into a kind of shock. He said he was in a zombie-like state. Quote, the world appeared two-dimensional and cartoonish. He went into a dissociative state, he's saying here. The world's flat, yeah.

The world is flat. Fucking up is down, black is white. I don't know. But when he said he asked them why they harmed Dawn, his friend said, quote, because she was such a bitch. Oh. Okay. Doesn't sound like her, number one.

And number two, so what? She's 16. You just came over. Fucking leave then. What are you talking about? You can't kill people because they're a bitch. That's crazy. Yeah, she's a baby.

Wow. The two friends said they were going to kill Campbell now because she's a witness. So now we got to, she's a baby. Wow, the two friends said they were going to kill Campbell now because she's a witness. So now we got to kill the other one. We got to kill Chrissy. And when they found her outside the room in the garage area,

one of them hit her with a hammer belonging to Guy Strange, is what Sam said. Took one of Guy's hammers, my dad's hammer, and fucking whacked her. While she laid on the garageb on the garage floor. Strange's other friend hit her with an axe, it says, and finished the job.

And they both warned him that if he opened his mouth or refused to help them clean up, then they could just as easily kill him, his little brother and his parents. We can kill you all and make this whole fucking scene go away. And they'll just look like some psychos came in, but it won't be us. He said he was ordered to dump the girls' bodies, quote, someplace, and he complied by wrapping them in trash bags and carrying them in the toolbox of his pickup truck to a familiar place, which was the hangout dump site there, like we knew. He said he discarded the girl's shoes,

makeup bags, and clothes in the woods. He also said he discarded Dawn's backpack in the bushes off Retrack Road, which is weird because her backpack, I don't know, she might have had two backpacks that were similar or what, but that's weird. And the axe and hammer in a pond near his home. So he said, they didn't find the hammer when they dove. There's a hammer in a pond near his home so he said i they never found they didn't find the hammer when they don't there's a hammer in there too he's claiming so that tells me he

used a hammer and a fucking axe that's what that was which makes more sense the hammers of better starting out right hitting tool yeah because it's hard it would be hard to swing an axe at somebody's head and have them knock it out of the way unless they weren't seeing it coming right and then a second one when your friend drops and you hear it and you see a man holding an axe that second shot ain't gonna happen no so whereas a hammer is much more if you can punch you can hammer you know what i mean yeah so the the motion says sam decided he would die before he would come forth with the information he held. Well, then that would make him die. So he wouldn't die. So what are you talking about?

Sam was terrified that even if he went to the police, his family would still be in great danger from the killers. From the killers, not only the killers, but their brothers, their family, and associates in the drug world. Oh, really? They have drug world associates. The prosecutor said this new account just doesn't ring true to him. He said this doesn't sound true.

It sounds like he's narrating what really happened and adding people to distance himself from the actual crime. At the same time, though, how did both of those guys have fucked up stories? Yeah, and how does one of them know that shoes are disappeared? That's the other thing. That's what I'm saying. Oh, boy. I don't know what's going on here but i feel like if this was the truth he would have sam would have come out with this a long fucking time ago yeah this wouldn't be like mid-trial this would be okay these guys and i'm innocent and i'm scared of them too please protect me you know that's a way to not go to jail i would think in his brain

grandpa's an officer though and he's afraid of that. Yeah, that's fucking ridiculous. So the ruling on that, whether he's going to get a new trial or not here, they said now that's going to be held off for a couple of months while they figure it out. So they said that they're going to give the strange and his new attorney time to come up with legal authority that would permit gathering of post-trial evidence because they want to gather more physical evidence. Sam wants to force the district attorney to collect hair and blood samples from Damian and Alan here. But the district attorney said the defense proposition places him, quote, in a moral dilemma. I can't ask a judge to issue such a warrant without believing Sam Strange, and I don't believe Sam Strange. That I don't like. That means that, to me, says he thinks there's a chance that's true.

Yeah, you can't say that out loud to everybody. Nope, he said the quiet part. He's got to say, I don't know, the system did its job. That's the problem. The issue with that is, yeah, no, you could easily test that shit then to go to prove he's a liar. Prove it. None of that shit matches anybody. How about that? I'm not testing it because I know I did the right thing. That's not okay. Prove him wrong. That's the point.

Right. You're the prosecutor. You can prove him wrong and say, and then it looks worse. You go, we proved he made up a big lie and tried to put two innocent people in here. What a piece of shit this guy is. Right. Makes him look worse. He'll get the death penalty for that shit.

This definitely tells me this prosecutor is very fucking worried that at least some of this is true. That maybe the three of them did it together. sam's not as innocent as he says he is yeah but the other two are involved and it's not the way he said it happened in court meaning the prosecutor and now he's got to redo the whole fucking thing so that's what i'm thinking the judge though decides that he will not get a retrial no more retrial here um at all and all but But he will do him a favor. He will do Sam a favor. He's going to strike one of these special circumstances on the murder that would have gotten him life without parole in prison. So now the worst he can get is life, but not life without parole.

With parole. With parole. So the judge said there is no evidence to prove which girl died first. So he took away the first degree murder because he said we don't have proof of that and the prosecution does not fucking know that. They're just making that up. He said that it stands to reason that one of them was killed first.

One of them's got to die first, obviously. But unless you know which one and can prove that's the way it happened, you can't just say, well, that must have happened. So a first and a second. It has to be specific. So he said that the jury found that one killing was an act of explosive violence. I cannot find a first-degree murder to have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecution argued that Dawn was beaten to death during an angry outburst and that her companion, Chrissy, was purposely slain from becoming a witness against him.

The jury decided to accept that, obviously. So the judge could not find any way in the evidence to infer that Campbell's killing was after Donaldson's or committed in a different manner, suggesting a plan or purpose. He said, you'd have no fucking idea. So the... I mean, if they're both murdered,

you have to assume one was murdered after. I wouldn't even say the first one was planned. If the first one was an accident, the second one's absolutely planned. If there's two, then one of them died second. I don't give a shit who's on the signing second. The problem is the law does. The law needs that, huh? The law needs you to, well, you can't just charge him with, he has to be charged with

first degree murder of so-and-so. Okay, all right. So if you can't prove. You can't just't no you can you can but then it's this it's two second degree murders otherwise you have to prove which one was killed and that first and then which one was planned they have no way of proving that so that's the thing yeah it's a make it's it's a stupid technicality that's crazy it makes sense you know, in logic, I guess. Not normal logic, but legal logic. It makes sense.

Because you've got to have it right. And that's our system. We have to be right. Yeah. And otherwise the appeals process would take this whole thing apart is the other thing. So now since he struck down the circumstances there, special circumstances, each murder is a maximum 15 years to life okay so the obviously the prosecution is asking for them to be consecutive and the defense is asking them to be obviously you know at the same time concurrent he's got supporters sam does he's got acquaintances and family rallying to his support. They're collecting signatures on petitions, picketing the courthouse, writing letters to the local newspaper.

It's a lot. The judge said, but a trial and a motion for new trial is not about what moms and dads and friends or even a whole community feel or think. We don't ask for a show of hands as to who thinks he does or doesn't get a new trial. Based on legal shit that I decide. Yeah, show of hands as to who thinks he does or doesn't get a new trial. Based on legal shit that I decide. Yeah. Yeah. Show of hands seems. Yeah.

Everybody gather. What do you think, y'all? Town square time. Bailiff, would you count those, please? Let's get them. Oh, Jesus Christ. That seems like a lot. This is going to be hard.

Can you all gather up into groups of five hey with people you agree with please i can multiply that the judge said sam was found guilty by 12 citizens of this community and the verdict must stand unless found constitutionally deficient and that's not the case here he said you were you were represented by two competent attorneys and you might disagree with certain things, but that's the way it was. So prosecution wants consecutive sentences. They say these deaths resulted from separate violent acts. To not do so, meaning give consecutive sentences, would be to deny the existence of one of these girls.

That's a fair point. Yeah. The Campbell's older sister, Chrissy's older sister, Wendy, in a plea to the court, said, please give him the maximum sentence. Talking about holding her as a baby. And said, now 18 years later, her life seems like a short, sweet dream. It's hard to comprehend. I'll never see her pretty face or hear her little laugh again. I want Sam Strange to think about Chrissy all the days of the rest of his life.

And pointed at him, too. Gave him a right to the face there. The defense, though, they don't agree. The defense attorney says, certainly there's nothing like this in his character. Yeah. Well, there is this. That's the problem. That's the problem.

He said, Sam is not being callous by not expressing remorse. He knows this was a horrible crime. He feels bad about it, but he covered up the crime and he knows he did wrong. Like he's not going to feel remorse for the murders cause he didn't murder anybody. It's just the coverup. So yeah,

that's how that goes. He then speaks as well. Said anything to say before your fucking sentencing here. And he says that, yes, he does. He didn't kill the girls he still denies it but he says he definitely tried to hide their bodies so he did something he said

about the families i understand their loss i didn't do it but i can understand how they feel i want to give them my full apology for what i did do i feel ashamed what i did was wrong that's all there is to it i know i can't change their minds about what they say or what the prosecutors believe but i know the facts because i was there regardless of how they feel about me i'll be there for them they can write to me i didn't kill them oh so he's like they want to write to me i'll fucking i'll tell them when they didn't kill him and we'll talk about it i'll tell them what happened but i didn't fucking do it and it's these people wow which i never heard a guy in his, like, allocution

fucking offer the families, you guys can write me if you want. That's a really arrogant, weird thing to say. Yeah. The judge says that, quote, this conviction that has occurred will stand unless another court

rules otherwise. Then he said, in my 26 years, that's a bad way. If you're getting sentenced and the judge starts out by telling you how long he's been doing this. Yeah, I've been on the bench this long. Oh, God.

He's not going to say in my 26 years, I've never seen a more innocent person screwed over so horribly. That's not what he's going to say during sentence. I've never watched injustice unfold before my very eyes. I've never watched the sun of justice set upon an innocent man so clearly as it has in this situation that never is what it is never he said in my 26 years i've seen many cases where someone swore they were innocent and the facts were overwhelming i believe that you under the law were responsible for these killings. You, sir, may fuck off 15 years to life consecutive. Oh, he got him.

So he got him on the consecutive there. Post-conviction interview is what convinced the attorney general that he was the only killer. That's what the attorney general says. He says that a post-conviction interview of him convinced him that he acted alone he said the that sam had a grant of immunity that would have shielded him from prosecution for anything he said in this statement because they said the attorney general said i'm not the district attorney yeah if what you said is true i want to fucking know it because i want to get these killers off the street and um yeah so he said that that despite a grant of immunity that would have shielded him for

prosecution, that Strange, quote, attempted to deceive or simply refused to answer direct questions posed by investigators. And Kathy Strange, Kat Strange, said, we're not a bit surprised. We really don't believe the investigation was done in good faith. We think Attorney General Daniel E. Lundgren's office is basically covering his tail politically. It sounds like he may have done it and he threw the finger at these guys and then given immunity, he can't say that they did it because that destroy. he can't say that they did it because that destroy he can't say that he could it'll destroy all of his his uh ability to appeal though is probably what he feels right i don't know i don't think i don't know what it is i it makes no sense to be honest with you why would he why would he he had all the all the fucking i don't know he had all the reasons in the world to make this guy believe him. That's what I don't understand.

So in the recall effort, by the way, they got thousands of signatures gathered during a recent Nevada County recall attempt. And Sheik Cathy called them expressions of loss of faith in the criminal justice system. This decision will serve to further divide us, the people and them, the government. Oh, now it's us versus them. There's a group of people out there that in this country, a big group of people to a group of people that like loves. They love when people get arrested and they love long sentences and they love law enforcement and stuff. Unless it's anything that with them. And then not only are they innocent, everybody's corrupt.

And persecuted. Everybody's corrupt. Fuck it. It's true. And you'll see regular people all the time fucking do that. All the time. You should arrest, give them the fucking chair. But if they get pulled over for going 20 mile an hour over the speed limit,

they're like, how fucking dare you pull me over? I mind my, like, the law doesn't apply to me it applies to people i deem bad what the fuck is wrong with you those are the people that crack their window and go no i i can hear you yes those are the sovereign citizens yeah watch watch on patrol any friday or saturday night you will come up with a bunch of people who are like, I love the cops. I support the police bumper stickers going, fuck you, you pig fuck in their face. Because they pulled them over and not somebody else. It's amazing how quickly that happens. So, yeah, that's what she says. Because, I mean, her dad's a cop, for Christ's sake.

And so it wasn't Officer Strange because it's her dad. So she took her husband's last name. So it's Officer whatever maiden name. Who the hell knows what that is there. Whoever the fuck he is. He did a terrible job. Because it's her dad, so she took her husband's last name, so it's Officer whatever her maiden name. Who the hell knows what that is there. Whoever the fuck he is. He did a terrible job. So she then, after the trial, added the Superior Court judge, John Darlington, to the list of people she wanted recalls.

I thought the judge oversaw it fairly, honestly, for everything he did. He had to kind of play impartial. He's the judge so when you start a list of of uh elected officials you're you're treading a fucking line there that any any slight misstep can get you locked the fuck away with a with a list of names i mean that's evidence enough that you're a fucking monster so yeah other recall leaders are not only her but a guy named named Don Minnick, who is the father of Mike Minnick. And he is a lather, meaning he runs a lathe, and a deacon of the You Bet Red Dog Community Church. The You Bet?

The You Bet. You, Y-O-U, Bet. Red Dog. Red Dash Red Dog. It's sponsored by a casino and cheap beer. Yeah. From the 90s. They made this church.

Community church. Yeah. He said he voted for both the sheriff and the prosecutor. Even 20 years ago, he and his wife organized a community association to cooperate with law enforcement in the remote area. See what I mean? These are the people who, when it goes against them, they go, no on their no i support this it's not it's so fucking weird he said if anybody had told me i'd be doing this i'd have told them you're out of your gourd yes because now it's about you and it's different everybody else they've been fair with but i'm the one person

they haven't been fair with that's that's that's what you're saying when you're one of those people. Unbelievable. It's a selective only me. So the sheriff was elected for the first time in 1994. He says he inherited the investigation and most of the accusations concern conduct by his deputies who weren't even I wasn't even in charge. They just got there and not even my personal actions. He says they claim I have bad cops working for me. I don't want bad cops working for me. He said he denied prejudice. This is great. I'll read right from the paper. Arbaugh denied prejudice against people who, quote, like to live in the woods.

It's an exact quote from the newspaper. I mean, somebody said he's just prejudiced against us because we like to live in the woods. That's exactly what it was, because that's the accusation. So he denied. They asked him, are you prejudiced against people who live in the woods? He said, uh-uh. I'm not prejudiced against people who choose to live in the woods. He did concede that they don't get the same level of law enforcement because, quote,

you've got to concentrate your resources on where most of your people and most of your problems are. You can't have 10 patrol cars wandering around the woods. It's not going to work. You're in the woods. I'm not coming out there. If you call, we'll come. It'll take a minute. It seems like you went to the woods for your privacy.

Now you got it. Leave us alone. That's part of living in the middle of nowhere. You go, how long would it take an ambulance to get to me here? That's some shit you should think about before you move. That is a time that I'm comfortable waiting. Yep. He said, quote, I have not received calls.

I can't do anything about complaints unless I know about them. All are taxpayer citizens and deserve service. That is to be provided for them. Yeah. Kathy does a hearing and she testifies. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. Oh, she. Oh yeah. She

most huge testimony this is in the recall hearings. She cited a list of contradictions in the investigative and court records of her son's case and recounted her efforts to date to get a new trial for her son who is now in Calipari Patria State Prison. She pulled

then she pulled off her wig. She's wearing a wig? Well, because she has cancer. She pulled off her wig. Jesus Christ! To show her bald head and announce that because she's dying of cancer she will not live to see the outcome of this. Then she said,

I ask you as a community to take the baton from me. I'm asking all the people who cared enough to come out to keep caring and writing letters. Oh, cat. A guy named Felix came to the front of the auditorium and publicly told her, I will be one of the guys who picks up the baton and writes letters asking for the reopening of the case. I'd like everyone to stand up if they're going to write a letter. And most of the crowd stood up and cheered. she did she hand him as her wig and as the baton she tossed

it to him as she walked off like take care of that how what a terrible poor thing i feel so horrible for yeah it's whatever cancer she's got is gonna kill her this is fucked up but it's a lot she is the cancer making her fucking even more loony you know what i mean because oh jesus fuck i mean i i bet her other kids would probably like her to just spend some time with them while she's dying yeah i'm sure stability is certainly questionable with this she she feels like it's her last mission in life to get her son out of jail she said uh this is the way, uh, or no,

this is that guy who stood up. He said, this is the way to take on the dysfunctional judicial system. We will Lance that boil. That's what we are doing here tonight. We have Lance that boil of corruption. We will see some action. I'm sure just to be sure,

write those letters. Oh, don't say it like that. She is saying that the whole case is hampered with her son's case between coziness between the judges and prosecutors. She said it's a

small town, but when the judge and the district attorney play golf together, it may not be appropriate for them to be in the same courthouse patting each other on the back. That's every courthouse there is because judges and all of the judges used to be lawyers. So a lot of them have worked together. They know each other.

They come from the prosecutor's office. They come from defense. Happens all the time. They knew the whole point of these judges and the lawyers is they're all sworn in. There's a lot of times defense and prosecutor against each other are best friends. Yeah. It doesn't matter. In court, you're doing a thing that you're fighting for. Your guys in football are best friends. It doesn't mean you don court, you're doing a thing that you're fighting for your guys in football are best

friends. It doesn't mean you don't try to tackle him when he's got the fucking ball. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Every sport or any competition, if you're in a competition in an industry, you know everybody that does that. Yeah. You know all these people.

That's what I mean. In a small town, how would you keep people in a small exclusive group, meaning lawyers, from hanging out with each other? That's insane. That's fucking insane. So, I mean, I get what she's saying, but that's just the way it is. And you had no problem with it up until now is the thing, too. So she is determined to get a new trial. She wants all of that shit.

She said that she would be in like Safeway handing shit out at the post office. At one point she had a wheelchair. She's dying and she's still handing out flyers and everything like that. She said, I want to die in peace. And so she said, I can't do that if my son's not getting a new trial so yikes that's wild um her presence in public settings has produced though 10 new leads which she passed on to investigators oh they said um she said although it would be more comfortable to be in bed at a time like this, it's more important to accomplish whatever I can for my son while I still have life left.

Yeah, she had breast cancer that metastasized to her liver. Oh, no. Now her liver has over 50 tumors surrounding it. Oh, Jesus Christ. Horrible. So the state had reopened the case twice, and the district attorney's office now accepts the possibility that new office may new evidence may exist that's what she says she said i don't know that i'll live to see it in my lifetime because i don't have much time left uh sooner or later the right thing will happen i believe that so now the prosecutor said that the strange case was the most challenging of the six

murder trials he prosecuted. Totally. I said, yeah. The defense attorney said this was, quote, the worst case I ever handled, far and away the toughest case I ever had. He said there's a lot of issues that prevented a fair trial, including the admissibility of some evidence. They said two people who were perpetrated, who perpetrated the murders, were not prosecuted. The decision to keep Sam off the stand was something he has regretted ever since. And he said there was a lot of blame to go around. He said he conceded the blood evidence

and forensic evidence pointed to his client but only as the cleanup guy. He said that the sheriff's office didn't investigate fully because it had honed in on Strange and that was that. He said they had tunnel vision. It was a tough, tough case.

I feel great sorrow about what happened to those girls. And the one who handled the appeals process, mostly arguing ineffective assistance of counsel here, he said that he did get a favorable response after an evidentiary hearing, which he said was extraordinary. He said, quote, the judge felt Strange, gave a logical explanation, putting two others at the scene. He was not the perpetrator.

He was the accessory. The judge agreed he should have testified. Objectively, it would have made a difference. It would have made a difference. Yeah, I don't know how much of a difference. But yeah, the judge said that the defense was doomed without his testimony. And they said that the petitioner's testimony was a necessity to tie up and mitigate forensic evidence. And a different judge disagreed, and the appeal was denied.

So he's finally up for parole in 2013. Is that right? That's when he's up for parole. That is 15, no, that is like 20, almost 20 years, almost 20 years, 16 years or so. He is or no, because it should be 19 since he got arrested. He the parole here is denied in the first run around. You're not going to give him parole right away. No, no way to 2014.

He has another parole here. It's supposed to be here. It's going to come. He's got he's got him every three years actually um so he's got one in 2015 that's moved up from 2016 so 2014 isn't a parole hearing but he uh he keeps even in his parole hearing and when he went up he was still blaming the other two guys really wasn't me wasn't me Wasn't me. Wasn't me. Um, but the problem is now by now,

the families of the victims are, they're not as one they're divided in what they think here. Really? Dawn's mother, Linda, Linda and her sister, Amber believe that Sam did this, but the Campbell's aren't sure about it.

Chrissy's parents don't know. Oh boy. Doug Campbell says that he's come to believe Sam's account over time, especially after he talked to Kathy Strange and read the manuscript she wrote about this case. Oh, boy. She wrote a fucking book about it. Yeah.

He said, quote, It was a whodunit. People didn't know. Was there a killer in our midst. Yeah, but you're taking the words from somebody that has certainly... That has a lot in this. Yeah, vested in this. Skin in the game. Right. Yeah. Super biased.

So, he went on to say we still don't really know what happened or why. And they said there was never any evidence to implicate the other two guys. They said they knew Dawn and Chrissy, but there was nothing to support that they had anything to do with the murders. We all felt he formulated the story based on the evidence we were able to acquire that the other guys did it and he helped,

had to help under duress. So the family said, this is very difficult. The one, the, the mother here said, Sam doesn't have a conscience. We know he had a part.

He came to our house after the bodies were found before we knew he did it. He was friends with Dawn's sister, Rika. How could he come to our house and act like nothing happened? He came over to be like, oh, have you heard anything yet from the cops? What do the cops think? Man, Kathy there, Kathy Strange, they talked about her and they said Sam's mom was everywhere. He said, my mom, this is, oh, I'm sorry, this is, I believe, Campbell's mom here. Campbell's brother said Sam's mom was everywhere.

My mom didn't want to go to the grocery store. Yeah. So they said they were dealing with, meanwhile, Kathy, they said, was more vocal, and the victim's parents said, we were just dealing with grief. People heard their side of the story more than ours. And the one guy said,

it did rub me the wrong way that friends were even saying Sam didn't do it. Like, their friends were like, you know, that guy didn't do it. Now, the mother, I believe, ended up moving away to Montana for a while before coming back to Nevada County. Dawn's mother. She said, I can handle it better now. The first two years I didn't want to go into town. Someone would say they were sorry and I would break down.

Oh, God. She said Dawn had many good friends in the area and Chrissy was one of them. She loved being with family and friends. She was always talking on the phone. She only stuck up for the underdog. And her brother said she was a great big sister. Mother said, it's a small town. I see a lot of her friends who have grown up.

They have families. And by then, because this is 20 years later, she said her friend Crystal named her daughter after Dawn and just realized that her daughter is now about the same age as dawn when the murders happened oh boy sam has no idea how much pain he caused to so many people they said holidays are really hard and all that kind of thing and uh yeah doug campbell christie's dad said what he had to say at the hearing was very believable it's what his mother stated in her book that she wrote 20 years earlier. Sam was hanging out with a group of losers in 1994 and had been allowed to move back into his home. He knew if he screwed up again, his parents would no longer allow him in the house. Well, it's better than being in prison.

That's why the bodies were moved and not disposed of where he put the axe. He went on to say Sam was there when these two young girls were murdered and he was the one who dumped the bodies and cleaned up the axe. He went on to say, Sam was there when these two young girls were murdered and he was the one who dumped the bodies and cleaned up the house. He was scared and very stupid that night and should be in prison, but there are two other very guilty buddies of Sam that killed the girls.

Sam was a friend of Dawn and had no motive to kill her. I believe there are people in Grass Valley that know what happened that night but are afraid to come forward. I think that Sam, to think that Sam did this alone is ridiculous that's what he said he also said about kathy she truly believed her son was not a killer she was bright aggressive lady i actually liked her so he liked the killer's mom yeah he said it's obvious. It's obviously brought up some bad stuff, but I wanted to know. I felt more relieved that I read the book.

I read it three times. Really? Wow. That is wild. Yeah. He said that it's she was a follower, but she worked hard to get good grades in school. I deal with my guilt over my lack of supervision of Chrissy every day. She was 16, man.

There's not much you can do at that point. It took me two years to say my daughter was murdered. He said, I went through therapy to come to grips with what happened.

You don't get over it. You just learn to deal with it. And they said that... The alternative is her alive hating you. That's... Well, it would have been over by now.

She'd like you by now. Now you'd be great friends because you'd be babysitting her kids yeah but she would have down payments of things for for locking her up all the time yeah it's so two more years two more years of that don't blame yourself you didn't kill her they did he said attending the parole hearings was therapeutic yeah i never heard anybody say that before he said it felt good that we went and went in and said the things we said. We got it off our chest. I'm not a person who holds grudges.

I guess not. I think he deserves to be in prison. I know he won't get out this time, but he's made some progress. I'm not concerned. He's been there for 20 years. I'm more concerned with completing the story. Wow. yeah wow um they said that he says also that shannon the sister chrissy's sister really believes sam has been hurt enough and it's time to move on wow wendy the other sister thinks they

should keep him in prison until the truth is told will it ever come out i really believe along the road someone will talk we don't know i don't think so we don't know fuck all wow so um yeah again they said another relative said i do believe he did it i don't believe the two other guys were even there and the cop said we worked the case for about three months a full division worked it solely all we did with this was this case until we made the arrest and um they wrote a letter the cops wrote a letter also opposing parole said setting him free right now he's a threat to public safety we don't know what happened did one of these girls set him off it could happen again possibly if he came out and he said he did it that would be different yeah he said he's told two completely stored different stories one of them's got to be a

lie so he's got to be good at lying because they both seem just as plausible how did one of those boys know that the fucking shoes weren't found? That's. How did they not know that? I don't like that at all. How did they know that? That's fucking crazy, man. The other question is, if they did it, why is there not a fucking single fingerprint of theirs on a bag?

That's, yeah. Where's that? What, they had gloves all of a sudden? What are we talking about? They got all fucking gloved up, but they were dripping blood all over the place, though. Yeah. Right. They're bloody, but they keep their fingerprints under wraps. What are we doing? They got all fucking gloved up, but they were dripping blood all over the place, though. Yeah. Right. They're bloody,

but they keep their fingerprints under wraps. What are we doing? So, yeah, they said, one mother said, but after a while, I thought that it would be too easy. He doesn't get to hug and love his family

just like we can't hug and love Dawn. He can see his family. We get to look at pictures and a lock of hair. They said he should get out never. Yeah. Yeah. They also said that they put up a memorial monument to her in a montana montana cemetery and the mother said it's a beautiful place with a view of the mission mountains and flathead lake that's where i will scatter her ashes yikes poor thing, up for parole.

He maintains that he's innocent, innocent, innocent. That's it. Just innocent. I don't know what you're talking about. And he is denied parole there. You're going to have to cop to it, man, to get out. 2018 parole hearing. Both of Chrissy's sisters, Shani and Wendy, both attend the hearings. Yeah. And Wendy said it's been a long journey.

And she she said, I believed he needed to serve some hard time for his role. He didn't call the cops. He watched my sister be murdered and did nothing. Yeah. Even if that's true. She said she always believed that he didn't commit the murders. Wendy said. But Wendy said she believes Strange made good use of his time in prison, noting that he's graduated from a course to become a drug and alcohol counselor. And Shani made a huge long statement. She wrote this long letter, very poignant letter, talking about I respect everybody and all that sort of thing. poignant letter talking about, I respect everybody and all that sort of thing. But,

um, they said that, uh, so I asked that if you believe Sam is ready, give him the chance to make something positive of his life and perhaps be able to help others that are on the wrong path. He in turn could quite possibly save the lives of many people. Wow.

Parole approved. What? Yeah. The families are even on board now. So, I mean, did he, did he admit it at least or did he still it's not over yet okay it's not a shanny said it took me 15 years to get to this point i hated sam i wrote his family horrible letters i wish death upon him i was so angry for many years it's been a long long transformation to me personally she said i no longer see him as a monster but as a human being she even wrote been a long long transformation to me personally she said i no longer see him as a

monster but as a human being she even wrote a a long uh blog post about him being granted parole and he said she said hearing the gruesome details of how chrissy was murdered is not is not difficult for me in fact i want to know every single detail i want to know the last moments of her life i think i deserve to know that and i am ready to know every single detail. I want to know the last moments of her life. I think I deserve to know that, and I am ready to know. So, yeah, she said it was hidden from me when I was a child. She talks about what he said. She said he talked about some of Chrissy's conversations with him in the last two days of her life. Her making fun of white people, because she was Mexican and her family was white, so she was making fun of her family.

Her telling him how to rock music, how rock music sucked and rap music was better yeah corn and that the reason they ended up in the room together was because of an ice he wanted to play body count it was an ice tea rap rock out he wanted to play body count he had the cop killer track and he was like i'll play that shit for you he wanted to play for her he's like what about this this is both this is right we can get along yeah these details even the graphic ones are healing to me i stared at sam throughout the hearing and saw someone like i feel i know personally because i kind of do through our letters i've gotten to know him personally his daily activities his goals for the future so yeah she's uh she goes on to say

that you know she's proud that he's tried to better himself and has a concrete plan to return to society and a support system. So the decision to deem him ready for parole doesn't mean he gets out. Now there's 120 days where it gets reviewed and the governor can say no. OK. So, yeah, that's how that goes. But they say that he took responsibility in 2015, the last time. Oh. Yeah, Shani says this time he flat out, last time he said he accepted some responsibility,

but this time he said he was fucking responsible. Shani said this time he flat out said he was part of my sister's murder because he watched it and didn't protect her and that he was an accomplice. He really took responsibility where he didn't fully do that before. She said, I'm excited for him. I think he's ready to embark on his life. I think it will be scary for him. He's got a lot of obstacles.

I hope he succeeds. Well, Governor Jerry Brown said, I hope he goes back to fucking jail. He reversed the parole decision. What? Sent him back to jail. Holy shit. They do that all the time. They did that to the Manson women for fucking 30 years. Yeah. time boy did they get the right i hate when they do that why have a parole board

what's the point why bother just send it all to the governor if he's got time to look over this shit what are we doing put the put the envelopes on his desk and have him make a choice so 2020 is up for parole this time he gives more details. Yeah. Yeah. He says he really gives bad details, too. He says at the time he was having sex with multiple underage underage girls, including one that was 14 years old. All right. It's fucking all sorts of girls. On the night of the murders, he said he had consensual sex with one of the victims.

I think it's Chrissy because that's when he keeps saying he was with the whole time. Moments before he watched her get bludgeoned to death and did nothing to intervene. So he's not saying he killed them, but he's saying now what actually that he was having sex with them. He says he discarded their possessions into a field where trash was dumped and all the blood was found. And, you know, he was apologetic. And the family said he says says i don't think i deserve anything i'm asking for mercy that's what he said chrissy's sister said i don't want uh i didn't want to say yes free him but now i've come to the realization i wholeheartedly believe it that's

wendy that's the one that really did wow she came around too she said i think chrissy would agree with us i don't think she would want him to be here forever. These are nice people. These are incredibly kind, nice, sweet people. Wow. I think she'd be like, fuck that guy, but you guys can be different. That's fine. Parole this time is granted.

Yeah? Yep. This time it goes under review and they let him out actually. Wow. He actually is. He's released on supervised parole and he'll be on supervised parole for a long time. So, there's that. Dawn's family did spread her ashes

over that lake and all of that. So that, everybody, is Grass Valley, California. And a weird-ass tale that we still don't know what the fuck happened, and we'll never know. I think a good assumption, I don't know. Is he a pedophile? He's a pedophile, right? He a pedophile right he's 21 and fucking admitting to having sex with lots of them yes 14 probably he probably had some weird shit where he was fucked up for a few years and he

thinks in his mind he's 17 but you're not 17 you can't fuck 16 year olds you are 21 did was he in prison for over 20 years and then now still thinks he's 21 do you know i mean that's what i mean oh boy that's possible this could be bad the guy that we knew i knew the girl that he went out with she was like 15 he was like 22 and his whole thing his mother was a crackhead who like he was in like foster care for years and like slept in a closet and all this shit so that he thought he was 15 in his mind, which didn't matter because he was still 22. It was gross. Right. And so we had one, too.

And he was just a he's a weird gross, such a weird kid. Fucking weird. He biased booze. Yeah. And then she broke up with him and then he, like, kept hanging around trying to get her back. It's like, dude, go to work. Yeah.

Get a fucking job. Go home and go to bed. You've got work. Go find some 35 year old to bang. She'll throw it fucking job. Go home and go to bed. You've got work in the morning. Go find some 35-year-old to bang. She'll throw it at you. So there you go. If you like the show, give us a review on whatever platform you're listening on.

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Do yourself a favor and do it. Never mind us. This is for you. That said, I need to hear the names of the greatest people in the world who would never, ever not say what happened to our dead bodies for 20 years. Jimmy, hit me with them right now. This was executive producer Donnie Jones,

Brian Lourette. Paris wrote, she got a new job. Congratulations, Paris. Kyle Norweg and Venera Boone. Thank you. I think it's Boone. It's B-U-N. It's probably not Bun. Venera, thank you. You're an angel.

Thank you so much. Other producers this week are Peyton Meadows, Patrick Fitzgerald, and Gerald Fitzpatrick, James. The best combo in the business. Jesus, the Irish are coming strong here. Joseph Armstrong in Wheeling, Virginia.

He was very excited about that episode. Sophie, content? Content? Content. Be careful, Jimmy. Careful with your tongue. Sophie, thank you. Jim Ignatowski. Oh, Reverend Jim. Eric Sass and Janice Hill.

Thank you all. Truly other producers this week are Kelsey Duncan, William Plummer, Chrissy Warren, Tammy Beaver. Truly other producers this week are Kelsey Duncan, William Plummer, Chrissy Warren, Tammy Beaver. All right. Imogen. I'm again Imogen. Danielle with no last name. Kelly Backman.

Acacia Holyfield. Tyler Kamek. Kamek. Kamek. Ryan Anderson. Jason Campbell. Probably not that one. Wendy White.

Impossible to be that one really, right? Isn't he dead? No. Jason Campbell. That was a quarterback. Yeah, yeah. Quarterback to be that one, really, right? Isn't he dead? No. Jason Campbell. That was a quarterback. Yeah, yeah. Quarterback to the Redskins.

Number 17. I hope that guy is part of this. Laura Pence. Oh, boy. Christopher Sanchez. Anna Kay. Carla Ramirez. Tyler Lafferty.

Kyle Cox. Rachel Helton. I hope that's Todd's kid. Ramonda Dawn. Ramonda? Ramonda. Elizabeth Murray. Ham Slammer. Ew. Ramonda? Ramonda. Elizabeth Murray. Ham Slammer.

Ew. What? Jesus Christ, man. Kristen W. Tina Sheets. Rick Smith. Victoria Guthrie. Carrie Jackman.

Gordon. Nora. And Larry the Guide Dog. That is fucking amazing. If Larry is your guide dog, that's fucking adorable. Thank you, Nora. Awesome. Myra Nash, Shana Hemwell? Hemwall.

What? Jackson Rowe. What did I just say? Hemwall? What? That feels dirty. Karen Benjamin, Abby with no last name, Christopher Oglesby. Oglesby.

Oglesby. Quinn Moore, Jesse. Jesse Barnett. Candace Bone, Jenny Sharp, Lori Goff. I think that's Goff. Bobby Swedish, Sweetfish, Sarah Emerson, Swedish. Those are delicious. They are delicious.

Karen, but she's not grim. Diane Larcell, Brian C., Deve Rivera, Kylie Schmidt, Joel Barnhart, Victoria. Nope, that's Heather. What? Heather Berg, Victoria Wers Joel Barnhart, Victoria. Nope, that's Heather. What? Heather Berg, Victoria Wurzbach. That's why. Lindsay with no last name. Miranda Starz, Starz Stracuzzi.

Stacey Simone, Simone Simony. Justin Woodley, Jacob Carruthers. Tiffany with no last name. Brian Gallivan, Stepany, Stepany. Stepany, Stepane? I don't know what that is. It's got to be Stepany. No, no, no. 2023. I don't know. 2023.

Alex Tapley, Betsy Perez, Ken Craig. This episode brought to you by the letter M. Trish Fares, Elizabeth Duclos, Catherine with no last name, Charmaine Breckenridge, Rebecca, that feels, alright right, that's royalty. I don't know.

Rebecca Mayfield. Probably not any relation of Mayfield. Jeremy? Yeah, or she. Jeremy's wife wouldn't give us money. No, she hates us. She hates us. She's very mad.

Very upset with us. Should be looking across the dinner table to direct her ire, yet she, we're the ones. Look next to you in bed, sweetheart, not over here. Denise Montoya, Nick Cox, Jessa with no last name, Megan Kim, Nathan Everard, not Everhard, there's no H. Melissa Skeen, Timber Wolf, Emily Hinderaker, Jennifer Love, Nicole Buckley, Kelsey with no last name, Gabrielle Lux-Dustin, Deuston Kiesling, Julianne Forcan, Yvette Maybe, James Sinkhorn, Ross Carter, Kelly Akers. Four cans.

How about it? Good for you. Chicken Total Recall only had three. Yeah, man. That's awesome. Sorry. It just struck me for some reason juvenile brain is funny ellie acres dan mcintyre chelsea chelsea neely scott michael ferry i wonder if a

doctor's ever put a few on a chick uh jerry b put some extras up there don uh don i thought you might want to five six of them. I put them in there. I wanted to give you some mutters. Jordan Faber, Ryan Goldstone, Carl Atkins, Rachel Weatherby, Les with no last name, Ingrid Coutet, Jessica Davis, author Piper Lee Ion. All right, Ion. Lisa Clark. Was that that chick that made – wasn't that Lisa Clark?

Lisa Frank. God damn it. Ah, there you go. Day Mac, just the real one. Jonathan Duarte, Carla Taylor, Catherine Mazzaferro. Mazzaferro. Mazzaferro. Mazzaferro.

Lee Arm... Hey! It feels like a song. Yeah. Meredith Bryan, Veronica Horton, Daniel Cor... Oh, boy. Cover Blass. Cover Rubius, Mark Daigle, Joey Goodman, Scott Deslaroyas.

That guy's on, where is he? I've seen that name. Zach Vandenboom. He's on social media somewhere. Where is that guy? James Cormany, Nate Assman. Well, good for you. Teddy Middleton.

Megan Horne. That's a cool name. Assman. What are you about? Brendan Hockmuth. Hockmuth? The Pamster. That's fun.

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